Today will be the last day of basic stitches, and the final two weeks we’ll be doing a few more advanced albeit beautiful stitches. The ones we will cover today aren’t that common, but they are easy and are great finishes and accents to designs. One thing I do want to say is people are still having trouble with french knots. While they do seem easy, you must practice them and it may take awhile. The key is to keeping the thread taut into your fingers after you wrap it around the needle and are pulling it through the fabric. If you aren’t holding it tight enough, it will unravel, or knot prematurely. Some people offered Heather Bailey’s instruction on doing them and said this way works wonders, and you can find that here. If anyone has any other suggestions (besides the ones that are in the comments for Lesson 2), please let me know – I’d love to post them since french knots are beautiful and almost essential to embroidery. Now, Lesson 4.

Stitch #9 Granitos Stitch

This stitch is complementary to the satin stitch (that we covered last week) as another way to fill certain shapes. They’re also great to do as leaves or petals instead of the lazy daisy (covered in lesson 2). This stitch is the same stitch in the same direction, coming and going in at the same point over and over. Sounds simple? That’s because it really is.

You’ll start by making a simple straight stitch (up at A, down at B). You’ll then bring your needle back up in the same hole as A and bring it back down in the same hole as B, pulling the thread all the way through, but so it goes to side (it helps if you hold the loop with your thumb as you’re pulling it through to make sure it lays beside the stitch and not on top of it).

You’ll continue alternating sides until you’ve reached the size or fill that you need. For this picture I did four stitches on both sides.

Stitch #10 Blanket Stitch

This is a great stitch to border items such as blankets (go figure), shirt collars, and also joining items together. The blanket stitch was the only stitch used to piece together this felt penguin.

You’ll begin by bringing your needle up at the base of your work, or where you’ll need it to be lined up (at A). Next, you’ll bring your needle down at B, diagonal to point A, and then up at C, which will be beside point A (about 1/4″ away). You’ll need to have the thread looped underneath your needle when you come up at C, or else this stitch won’t work.

Then you’ll pull the thread taut and you have a backwards “L”.

You’ll do this over and over until you get to the end of your edge or completed the length that you need.

When you’re done, you’ll take the needle through on the opposite side of where you came up for the last time, planting that stitch and leaving your thread behind your work.

When doing this stitch on the edge of a garment or piece of fabric, you’ll execute in the same fashion, starting on the backside of the fabric. Take the needle and go down through the hem vertically (at A), turn your fabric over and go down at B (diagonal to A) and through the hem vertically, like you did at A.

Make sure that your thread is looped behind/underneath the needle as you pull the thread taut.

Continue until you reach the end, planting your stitch when you’re done.

Stitch #11 Herringbone

These last two stitches aren’t the most common or the most used, but I love them, especially as a border for a garment or as a border within the design.

First, you’ll want to use one of your ink pens to draw two parallel lines on your fabric. You’ll bring your needle and thread up at point A on the base line. You’ll then take your needle up and diagonal to A and insert it at B and out at C (moving right to left as shown in the picture). You can actually go in at B, pulling the thread all the way through and then up at A, making two seperate actions, or you can do like I have done in the picture.

You’ll then move to the base line, put your needle through at D, diagonal to B & C, and out again at E, still moving right to left.

You’ll continue working this way until you reach the end of your lines.

You’ll also end this the same way you do your blanket stitch, and that’s to take the needle down beside the last point you came up, leaving your thread behind your work. Now if you want to add another element to it, you can now incorporate the double herringbone stitch.

Stitch #12 Double Herringbone Stitch

You’ll basically use a contrasting thread color and do the exact same thing in between the original herringbone, except starting at the top line instead of the base. You’ll work in the same way, except you’ll alternate taking the thread behind the original stitch (so you’ll go over then under, over then under, etc).

Lesson 4 Homework

Continue working on all the stitches so far on this week’s design template. I left the dress plain so that you could use any stitch you like for embellishment on it. I can’t wait to see what everyone does!