Fall Stitch School: Long and Short Stitch

Welcome to another week of Fall Stitch School. This week, we're studying long and short stitch. This stitch is troublesome for many embroiderers, but I'm hopefully going to show you that it is not any harder than any other stitch and it can be quite fun to fill an area in. Long and short is very useful not only in crewel embroidery, but thread painting as well. Embroiderers can achieve beautiful shading affects with this stitch. It really is worth a little practice to improve your technique and gain confidence in your abilities.

The basic idea behind long and short stitching is simply to vary the starting and ending points of the stitches so that you can get a smoother color shift and to be able to easily stitch contours. I've made three sample shapes with long and short to show you a couple ways to use it. The first thing to do in crewel embroidery and (thread painting too) is to outline your shapes with split stitch or split back stitch.

First shape is a basic box. The first row of stitches is composed of some longer and some shorter stitches. For the rows following, you use only long stitches (except at the end of the shape, of course), but this isn't a precise science, so the stitches will have some natural variation in length anyways.

Notice my stitches aren't made perfectly even with each other. You will see that it hardly matters, in fact maybe it's better because it's so important to vary the placement. I went ahead and added another row of this color. It's very important to always, always bring the needle UP through the stitches and never down into them.

The next row of stitches is started by bringing your needle up in the color above.

Again you see I haven't made a perfect row of stitches. It looks a little odd in this contrived example, but in a real project, it will look fine with the variation. Start the next row bringing your needle up through the color above. This picture shows how far in you need to bring the needle up - it can be surprisingly far in.

 

The next shape is a flower petal. Another thing to keep in mind, is that it's important to work from the outside edge inward. This example shows how you may need to change the angle of your stitches to get a nice shape.

Some of the shorter stitches end up tucked under the longer stitches since the stitches are converging toward a single point and there won't be room for them all.

The most challenging (and fun!) thing to do is fill complicated shapes that bend around curves. This is particularly useful when filling animal shapes. 

To move around a curve, you  make stitches with varying starting and end points (this is really important for the making a nice filling), but the angle of the stitches changes a bit as you move around the stitch. The stitches are placed quite far up into the row of stitches above. Only a little part of each stitch is left showing, so you get a nice progression of stitches at different angles as you move around the curves. If you make the stitches a little shorter you will get a really smooth curve.

Here you see all three shapes filled in. I have limited colors on hand, but I think that you can still see the potential this stitch offers.

I have a small example from a project stitched with long and short using crewel wool. You can see how I have made contours around the shape of the animal

I hope this lesson was helpful in demystifying long and short stitching just a little bit. Give it a try! It's not so hard as it seems. :)

Fall Stitch School: Crewel Embroidery

It's finally here! For this season's stitch school I am trying something a little different, which will be to focus on a type of stitching instead of just a bunch of more or less random stitches. This is still all about the stitches, of course, but I will pick stitches traditionally used for crewel embroidery. At this point I am not entirely sure how many weeks I will run this, but I promise you at least 6, not including this introduction.

So, the first question is what is crewel embroidery? I read up a bit to see what today's embroiderer's say about it. There are basically two opinions. The first is that it is defined by the type of yarns chosen, ie 2-ply wool yarns of varying thicknesses. The stitches are a bit secondary, as many types of stitches can be used. Other embroiderer's are a bit looser with the definition and think it's ok to use other types of threads as long as you are using stitches fairly typical to crewel embroidery. I am not taking a side in this debate, but in this stitch school, I am sticking with wool mostly because I enjoy them and because they sit a bit higher on the fabric since they are generally thicker than other threads - some think this is an important component of what crewel embroidery is.

 

A crewel-type project, but with cotton threads.

Crewel embroidery has a very long history. The Bayeaux tapestry stitch about 1000 years ago is considered a crewel embroidery. The embroiderers used only 8 colors to create this magnificent embroidery. It's definitely worth a look at. I took a quite peek at a book about in the library the other day, and they really made interesting use of the stitches to create textures and lines. Crewel embroidery has gone in and out of fashion. In the 17th century is was popular and is often called Jacobean embroidery. Many of you may think of the 70s when you think of crewel with its browns and oranges and avocado greens when this type of stitching enjoyed a bit of popularity. Today's crewelers have a multitude of patterns to choose from traditional to contemporary.  There really isn't any rule for what type of design can be used in crewel embroidery. And really, you can make any type of pattern into a crewel project by the threads and stitch choice.

Ladybug project stitched with Appleton crewel wools.

As far as fabric choice goes, there are many options. Often linen or linen-cotton blends are chosen because they have a looser weave so there is a little more room for drawing the needle through the fabric. In Sweden, they just call it wool embroidery rather than crewel, but it really is a type of crewel embroidery, but it is quite common to use thick wool felt to stitch on.

The stitches are divided into 6 categories: outline stitching, satin, couched stitches, seed stitches, french knots, and long and short (some people call this soft shading). I will go through these 6 types in the following weeks. Outline stitching and couched stitches have the most variation as far as types of stitches, the others are just one type of stitch. Crewel embroidery often uses a mix of stitches and filling and lines to create interest and textures. I will try to highlight some of the possibilities with these stitches in the coming weeks. Hopefully you will get inspired to try a bit of crewel yourself!!

Fall Leaf Embroidery

I did this little project over the weekend.  The fall colors around here inspired me to pick up the needle and try this little assissi embroidery project.

 My main point was just to practice some of the summer school stitches in something more like a regular project rather than just a sampler. It is good to see them with other stitches too.

 If I have counted correctly, I used 8/12 of the stitches. Not bad! Using them all really wasn't the main point, but just to use some of them. You can see in my close-ups that there are lots of nice textures to these stitches. It really does make it more interesting to look at.

I used plant-dyed wool fibers throughout the whole project. The colors are just so nice and earthy. It was a pleasure to work with them.

Summer Stitch School Week 12: Cross Stitch

Welcome to the final week of Summer Stitch School!  This week's stitch isn't so exotic.  I picked the humble cross stitch.  Not many stitches manage to have a full industry based around it, but the cross stitch has managed this, and it's probably what you think of when you hear "cross stitch".  Today's goal is to show you that it much more than that!  It is in fact quite a versatile stitch as you will see.

The cross stitch
Cross stitch is very straightforward, simply make two straight stitches that cross.

That's all there is to it.

Variations
Now you know cross stitch can be both a filling and a line stitch, so I am not taking time to show a bunch of x's lined up.  Instead the goal is to show you that there are many ways to use this simple stitch to create interest and texture.

Variation 1
The basic stitch. Traditionally, the lower and upper stitches are made in the same direction. Of course, one is free to turn that upside down and experiment with that. I will leave that to you though and focus on shapes and uses instead.

Variation 2
Stitch a row on top of another. Adds a lot of interest, especially when you use two floss colors. Also shown are some single cross stitches with variations on the layering.

Variation 3
Change the height and width of your stitches. Also, a line of cross stitches are quite pretty when spaced out a little.

Variation 4
The cross stitch can be wrapped, threaded and whipped like many other stitches. In the upper example I have threaded the x's in alternating directions as shown in the photos.

 Also you can whip the x's. Just bring the needle under each x from the same direction.

Variation 5
The legs of the x don't need to be the same at all. Vary the angle or vary the length. Line up two rows of x's with varied angles for an interesting pattern.

Variation 6
Cross stitch is a great stitch to use when couching. Use it to couch down yarns, ribbons or perhaps an odd material such as a rolled up candy wrapper.

Variation 7
Cross stitch can be used to stitch on beads. In this example I have widened the x so that it shows a bit under the bead. The x can be small so that it is not seen too.

Variation 8
Turn the x on it's side and make an upright cross stitch.

Variation 9
More layering of stitches.  This time a regular cross stitch on top of an upright cross stitch.

Variation 10
Size is another important way to vary the x's. When making a row of x's, try making some larger. Adds interest!

I hope this has been an interesting lesson!  I've certainly done my share of "normal" cross stitch, so this way fun to see the stitch in a new way.  This is the last lesson, but I will make a summary post!

Summer Stitch School Week 11: Feather Stitch

We've made it to week 11 of The Floss Box summer stitch school. Time flies when you are having fun, and stitching is lots of fun! This week I chose a good, classic stitch: the feather stitch. It's easy to make and very pretty and versatile. Traditionally, it's a line stitch, but pretty much all line stitches can be made into fill-in stitches.

The Feather Stitch
This stitch has a side to side pattern as shown the pictures. With your needle grab a bit of fabric to the right and in the middle where the needle was brought up. Make sure the thread is wrapped under the needle. For reference, I call the individual units "loops".

After you pull the needle through, simply make a similar loop to the right of the first.

 Repeat the pattern down to make your line of stitches.

 At the end of the line just make a small straight stitch at the end. You can of course, make the straight stitch longer or shorter as you like.

Variations

Variations 1 and 2
The first variation is the standard feather stitch. Variations marked 2 are different ways to form the right and left loops. They can be made so the loops follow a straight line down the middle, or formed with very wide, shallow loops. The right and left sides can be assymetrical too for an interesting effect. There are many, many more ways to line up the loops, these shown are but a few of them.

Variation 3
This shows two lines of feather stitches with one on top of the other. This layering gives a whole lot of texture to the stitch.

Variation 4
You can vary the number of side to side loops. This shows two loops in each direction. You can do many more or make them with varying number of side to side loops.

Variation 5
The feather stitch can be easily wrapped, threaded or whipped. Here I have threaded the feather stitches with a different thread through the loops.

Variation 6
An example of how you could add beads to the feather stitch.

Varation 7
By making rows of stitches, you can make the feather stitch into a filling stitch. In this example the stitches are lined up so they share holes. An interesting wave pattern emerges when the stitches are lined up like this.

I hope you enjoyed this week's lesson. Next week will be the final lesson. I hope these have helped a few of you out there to be inspired to pick up your needle and try something new!

Summer Stitch School Week 10: Needle weaving

Hi and welcome to another summer stitch school adventure. This week I've selected needle weaving.  It's a little different from the others because it's more like a technique than a single stitch, but the stitches are just variations on the idea of weaving the needle in and out of bars. Needle weaving is very nice for adding textures and interesting details to your projects, so it's definitely worth a little time to learn it.


The needle weave stitch
The basic idea is the same for regular weaving on a loom. First, make a series of vertical straight stitches.

Then with your needle weave in and out of the straight stitches. In this example, the needle is brought down at the end of the row of stitches, and up again for the next row.

 

Variations

 There many ways to use needle weaving to create different effects and types of stitches. The sampler shows a few of these.

1. This is the basic needle weaving stitch in a few different forms. As shown above you can end each row of weaving by bringing the needle to the back of the fabric or you can just wrap the thread around the last bar and start the next row. Note that the more firmly you pull on the thread while weaving, the more edges will bow inward.

Also note the difference that making the straight stitches farther apart makes. This is especially apparent in the irregular shape example.

2. This type of needle weaving is called needle woven bars. This stitch is formed by first making two straight stitches, and then weaving back and forth around them. The sampler shows both a variation with parallel straight stitches and one with nonparallel straight stitches.

3. This variation is known as woven spiders wheel. To form this stitch, you make an odd number of straight stitches radiating out and weave in and out of them.  You can fill the radiating bars completely or leave the spokes showing.

4. This type of needle weaving produces a raised effect. To form this stitch, bring the needle up and down just slightly over to the right of where the needle was brought up. Then with a scrap of thread pull the loop firmly.

 Bring the needle up again at the base of the loop and begin needle weaving. You will have to hold onto the scrap thread while you work up the loop. Gently push the weaving down a little as you go along. Be sure to pull firmly after each turn, but not so firmly that the weaving is pulled upwards.

 

When you reach the top of the loop, remove the scrap of thread and bring your needle down to the back of the fabric. You can bring the needle straight back so the woven section lies flat, or you can twist it a bit or let it bow over a bit above the fabric.

5. This stitch is called a needle-woven picot. To form this stitch, loop the  thread around a pin. The placement of the pin will determine how long the stitch is.

  

Then bring the needle up again to the right of the loop and pull it behind the pin. Then begin the needle weaving. Like the previous stitch, pull firmly, but not too much after each turn. At the bottom, bring the needle to the back.

 That concludes another week of summer stitch school. I hope you enjoyed seeing this stitch.Grab a needle and give it a try. It really does help to play around a bit and try the stitches - plus it's lots of fun!!

Summer Stitch School Week 9: Queen Stitch

Welcome to another week of summer stitch school! This week's stitch is the queen stitch also known as the renaissance stitch. The queen stitch isn't one of the more common stitches, but there is nothing hard about it, and it has a nice shape that can be used in a variety of ways. 

The queen stitch
The stitch is composed of a series of straight stitches. First make a vertical straight stitch, then a small horizontal stitch in the middle of the first stitch.

Next, make another vertical straight stitch in the same holes as the first.  Then make a  small, horizontal anchoring stitch to the left.

Repeat on the other side.

Now the stitch is complete!

Variations on the queen stitch
There are of course, a whole wide range of variations for the queen stitch.  Here is shown just a few of them.

1. An example of the standard stitch formed.
2. Addition of more color is just one idea. There are many possibilities for arranging the individual stitches. Here they are lined up on their sides.
3. The queen stitch can be a filling stitch also. If you don't want a zig-zag edge, try making some half stitches to fill in the gaps.
4. Different examples of aligning the queen stitch. You can make your stitches wider or narrower by changing the width of the center straight stitch. For a wider stitch, just make the middle straight stitch wider.
5. This is an example with 3 colors. Each of the colors has its own needle.  Handling all those needles can be a challenge a serious challenge in itself!
6. The queen stitch is well-suited to beading. In this example, a bead is added to the middle straight stitch.
7. In this example a thread is whipped around the middle straight stitch. There are many other possibilities for wrapping and threading the stitches.
8. Another possible alignment of stitches. Lining up two rows can make an interesting line of stitches.

I hope you enjoyed this week's stitch. Grab some thread and fabric. It really is fun to experiment a bit!