Fall Stitch School: Crewel Satin Stitch

Welcome to the first of the crewel embroidery stitches for this season's stitch school! Things have busy here with fixing our barn, so the stitching suffers a bit right now, but things should be improving soon. I ended up starting with the "easy" satin stitch. It is very straightforward as many of you know. Just line up the straight stitches so they cover the area to be stitched. There is one small complication with crewel embroidery though. Satin stitching is outlined first. This helps make a nice edge and adds just a little bit of padding.

To make the crewel embroidery satin stitch, first you outline the shape with either split stitch or split back stitch.

 I usually end up using split back stitch because I feel it's a bit faster to make than split stitch. It's quite simple, just bring your needle forward for the next stitch as you do with back stitch, but bring it down so you split the previous stitch. As I said, either this or regular split stitch does the job.

The next step is the actual satin stitching. The stitches are placed so they cover the outlined shape - just follow the edge you made and place your needle just on the outside of them. Making nice, even stitches takes a little precision. It can take a lot of practice and patience to make really nice ones. I usually start in the middle of the shape and work to one side, then go back to the middle and work to the other edge. Often you want them all to have the same angle, like when you might fill a box or a circle. But other times like filling a leaf or a curved area, you may want to purposefully change the angle on the stitches. I made a little example of each of these shapes.

So there y