Make it Sew: The Hard Stuff

Congratulations, cadets. You’ve survived your first lesson in geek crafting. Last week we learned what we need to get started (a good stitchable fabric like a cotton tea towel, embroidery floss—good old DMC is the best for beginners, and an iron-on pattern like those from Sublime Stitching). We also learned three embroidery stitches: back stitch, stem stitch, and chain stitch, with some variations. Now, let’s once again begin the adventure into crafts. The final frontier. Our continuing mission: to explore strange new crafts; to seek out new art and new artistic inspirations; and to boldly go where no crafter has gone before.This week we’re going to learn three new embroidery stitches. Let’s start with the split stitch. This is a lot like the back stitch we covered last week, only instead of making your stitches in a straight line with the ends touching, you’re going to make them so that they overlap. The beginning of one stitch is going to come up in the middle of the previous stitch. The first step is to make a straight stitch,

and then bring your needle up in the center of the last stitch.

Then poke it back down a little ahead of the end of the previous stitch.

Continue on that way, making a line of split stitches. Shazam! You learned a new stitch!

Next, let’s try a fill-in stitch, the satin stitch. This is where things get a little more complicated. This is something you’ll use when you want to cover a lot of area, color in a shape, or create something with a raised texture. If you do it right, it’ll look really smooth and pretty. And if you stick with me, kid, you’ll do it right.

First, you’ll want to outline your shape in back stitch.

Next, find the line bisecting the middle of your shape and bring the needle up at the top end of that line.

and then bring it down at the bottom end of the line.

Now keep doing that, making long, smooth stitches, making sure you are covering up the back stitch outline (this will help keep your shape accurate AND give you the nice full look we want).

And when you’re done, it’ll look like this.

Awesome! That was a tough one! But you haven’t seen anything yet. Now it’s time to learn…the FRENCH KNOT. *cue ominous music*

The French knot is not actually as scary as it’s been made out to be. It IS complicated, but we’ll manage (with just a little cussing). It’s a great stitch for adding details to something, like eyes, earrings, spots on a toadstool, stars…you get the idea. You can even use it as a fill stitch if you want to make things look curly or fluffy or just plain fabulous.

Step one is to bring your needle up exactly where you want the knot to be.

Now the tricky part. You’re going to need to lay the hoop and fabric down on a surface (or balance on your knees or something) because you’ll need both hands to work the thread. The directions I’m going to give you are for right handed people, but you can find left-handed directions on most good stitching sites. Okay, so we have the thread up through the fabric and the hoop down on the table. Now grasp the thread somewhere in between the fabric and the needle with your left hand.

With your right hand, hold the point of your needle in front of your thread. It’s important that the needle is IN FRONT of the the thread. It’ll make life easier later. Trust me on this. *Pete Tyler smile*

Now you make the body of the knot itself, by wrapping the thread once or twice around the needle, so that the direction of the wrap is TOWARDS YOU (this is why it was important to put the needle in front of the thread). One wrap will give you a smaller knot, and two will give you a bigger one. Logic!

Okay, so the wraps are pulled tightly around your needle and the floss is held nice and taut in your right hand. Now put the point of your needle down next to the point where you pulled it up BUT DO NOT PULL IT THROUGH.

This step is when the magic happens. With your left hand, pull the coils tight and slide them gently down the tip of the needle BUT NOT OFF. You should have a little coil of thread resting against your fabric, with the needle poking up out of it.

Now, very, very gently, with the coil of thread held snugly against the fabric, pull the needle through the fabric AND through the coil of thread, so that it makes a nice little anchor holding the knot against the fabric.

Snap! You’re done! You made a French knot! Isn’t it cute? No? Well, this stitch is one that is going to require some practice, but it’s worth it.

Now you know six, count ‘em, SIX, new embroidery stitches! You can put them together to make anything you want! Okay, cadets, here’s your first mission: make something geeky and then come back here and show it off! Drop a link in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @theroseinbloom! Next week, make your own cross stitch TARDIS!

 

Header image by Jenny Hart. All other images by Danya Michael.