This fourth and final post about crochet embroidery takes us full circle, in a way, going back to backstitching and weaving. If you have any last questions or comments please do leave them. I’m open to a follow-up post in a week or two tying up any loose ends (so to speak).

As always, the photos link to larger versions, and the full post is behind the cut.

Whipped and threaded stitches

The first bank of stitches are all built on backstitch, or alternatively double running stitch. In each case, after laying down a base of backstitch, you’ll stitch up at one end, in the same spot as the backstitch. When you finish the row, you’ll stitch down through the same spot as the other end of the backstitch.

We’ll start at the bottom with threaded backstitch. “Threaded” and “whipped” are very similar, meaning you run a new length of yarn under each stitch of the base in turn, but to thread you stitch down through the first stitch, up through the second, down through the third, and so forth, as shown above. To whip you keep the same direction each time, as we’ll see below.

Depending on how tightly you pull the threading yarn you can get anything from an almost continuous line to a backstitch that appears to be tacking down a wavy line.

The second stitch, because I wasn’t sensible about ordering, is Pekinese stitch. In this the threading yarn loops around, much like a backstitch laid on its side. You start by inserting your needle down through the second stitch, then back up through the first, keeping your needle on top of the previous threading yarn stitch. Next you go down through the third stitch and up through the second, and continue in the same manner: stitch down through the second stitch from the one you just used, and back up through the prior stitch.

The third and final stitch, used for the top three lines on this face of the pyramid, is whipped backstitch. In this you stitch the same direction through each backstitch (in the picture above, upward), so the whipping yarn coils around the other yarn. My favorite use for this is to make a line of stitching that appears to be a single continuous length of yarn, as in the second line of the photos below, which even works to a certain extent with embroidery floss, as you can see in the top line below.

One point I’d like to make now, that you’ve probably noticed along the way, is that regardless of the stitch you’ve made, yarn looks more of a piece with an object crocheted in yarn than embroidery floss does. The fact that floss is smoother and shinier makes more difference than its thinness. Sometimes floss is necessary, because the available yarn is too thick for the desired feature, but I have moved toward using yarn whenever I can and floss only when I must.

You can whip, thread, and weave just about any stitch. Check out the picture dictionary on Sarah’s Hand Embroidery Tutorials to see some examples (click through for instructions).

Couching

Couching is tacking a length of yarn lying completely on the surface of the fabric with small crosswise stitches. It is great for creating contours that don’t match up well with the convenient spots to stitch through your crochet fabric. Traditionally, couching is done with a thin thread tacking down a thick thread, as in Sharon B’s tutorial, but it need not be. I began my couching with a long, loose stitch beginning and ending where I wanted the line to begin and end, and long enough to make my desired contour in between. You could also couch while your surface yarn (the laid thread) is attached at one end only, stitching the opposite end down afterward, to avoid potentially leaving yourself too much or too little of it.

As usual, be careful not to pull your tacking stitches too tightly, since the laid thread can get pulled down into the fabric. In the full couching picture above, the left three pink-on-pink couching stitches were made with embroidery floss, and the right two with yarn, for comparison.

You can couch items other than yarn and floss, too, though you may need to worry about raw edges. For example, here’s a crazy quilt including couched rick-rack, seen best in the fourth picture.

Spider’s wheels

There are two kinds of spider’s wheels, whipped and woven, one of which (woven) is also known as a spider web. They are both built on a spokes of straight stitches, with the whipping/weaving yarn coming up through the middle of the spokes to start. Analogous to the whipped and threaded backstitch, in a whipped spider’s wheel you make the same motion on every spoke, and in a woven spider’s wheel you alternate between two mirrored motions.

A woven spider’s wheel must be made on an odd number of spokes; a whipped spider’s wheel may use any number. You can make your spokes in many ways, but the center must be attached to the fabric so you have something to weave around (a fly stitch with an additional straight stitch to make the fourth and fifth spokes would work).

To weave, alternate stitching over and under the spokes in turn. Take care with your tension – it is easy to pull this too tightly, especially in the outer rounds. End by stitching down at the end of a spoke.

The whipped spider’s wheel is more like Pekinese stitch. Begin by stitching under two spokes. Pull your yarn through and then stitch under the second of the two spokes you just used, plus the next one. Repeat around and around; the fourth photo above shows one completed round. End by stitching under one spoke only, and then stitching down at the end of that spoke.

Be careful not to split the spoke yarn; it’s a danger with all woven stitches but I had the most difficulty with it with the whipped spider wheel.

Of course you don’t have to make these in circles. The upper right embroidery floss wheel in the full picture, above, was made with the base below.

Detached woven picot

The detached woven picot is a triangular panel that stands off the fabric like a petal (or an ear). You start by making a straight stitch from one end of the attached side to the other. Do not tighten this stitch down, though. Instead, decide how tall you want the picot to be and insert a pin into your fabric at that distance from the base. Catch the straight stitch with the pin so it tightens into a V.

Come up again between the two ends of the base. I made the V with a different color yarn so the construction would be more visible, but typically the picot would be made with a single length of yarn. Wrap the yarn over the pin and start to weave from the point of the V down. Begin by weaving under the V strands and over the middle strand; when you come back the other way, weave over the V strands and under the middle strand. Continue this way, as we saw before with freehand weaving. Be very careful not to catch any strands of your crochet fabric with your weaving stitches. This stitch benefits from some manual tightening/scrunching of the horizontal stitches, toward the point of the V, so that the finished piece is solid. Weave as many rows as you can fit without clumping them up.

When you get to the open end of the V, loop your yarn once around the outside strand and insert your needle into the same spot the picot frame emerges from. Remove the pin and smooth your picot upward.

For another set of instructions for detached woven picot stitch, visit Pintangle. She also teaches a variation that is attached to the fabric by only one stitch, so it is pointed at both ends, called closed base needlewoven picot or needlewoven picot leaf stitch. You can also make three straight stitches in a fan, attached at both ends, for a fully attached version called woven trellis stitch.

If you like dimensional stitches, check out Brazilian embroidery. The page linked has instructions for several stitches, and in particular I’d call your attention to detached buttonhole stitch. This is a freestanding panel of embroidery like a picot, but allows you to increase and decrease in rows for more control over the shape. I have not tried it but it seems likely to me there will be a conflict between stitches pulled tightly enough that the panel can stand away from the fabric, and stitches loose enough to work into without a struggle. The results could very well be worth a lot of struggle, though.

I’ll just point out, while we’re here, that although this crochet piece and the yellow one from the first post in this series are both square-based, I made them differently. This one (above left) was made with an sc3tog in each corner, and the previous one (above right) with two consecutive sc2tog (standard decrease) stitches. Two consecutive standard decreases makes a more solid fabric.

Visit the table of contents post for this series or all posts labeled “embroidery on crochet.”

The post Embroidery on Crochet 4: Weaving, whipping, and couching appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

Welcome to Episode 3 of this series about embroidering on crochet. I often call lazy daisy and fly “caught stitches.” We’ll see more caught stitches this time, but I’m calling them linked stitches to evoke the fact that they are multiple stitches in a row, rather than separate. Remember that if you have any questions or suggestions, I’d love to hear them!

As before, the photos link to larger versions, and the full post is behind the cut.

Chain stitch

The chain stitch is a sequence of interlocked lazy daisies, each one tacked down by another except for the last, which is tacked in the usual way.

Each chain stitch begins at the pointed end of the teardrop. Bring your needle up at that point and back down in the same spot. Reemerge where you want the rounded end of the teardrop and catch your yarn with the needle before tightening the stitch (1st picture above). Use the spot your thread now emerges from as the point of another teardrop. Your teardrops need not be all in a straight line, although if they angle by 90 degrees or more the loops they tack might not stay flat against the fabric.

When you get to the end, stitch down in the same spot your thread is coming from, but on the opposite side of the teardrop yarn. Just as with lazy daisy, don’t pull your final tacking stitch too tightly, or that end will disappear into the fabric. It is uncommon to make a “long-tailed chain stitch;” i.e., a chain with a long final tacking stitch, but it would certainly work.

The chain stitch is exactly the crochet chain, just made in a different way. If you have access to both sides of your crochet fabric, you can create a chain along the fabric with crochet, as shown on The Zen of Making. Once you have a chain, regardless of how it was created, you can use it as a foundation chain for additional crochet, which is described on About.com.

Open chain stitch is a series of interlocked Us or horseshoes rather than teardrops. It’s slightly more fiddly than chain stitch, but has the same concept. Come up at one end of the open side of the U, stitch down at the other. Come up again at the base of the U on the same side as your downward stitch (1st picture above) and catch your yarn. This time, before tightening, also insert your needle into the other base “corner” of the U (2nd and 3rd pictures above). You will most likely need to hold on to the needle with one hand and pull the yarn away from the chain rather than straight up from the fabric, so the side of the chain caught by the yarn has some downward pressure.

Which side of the chain is caught by yarn and which by needle will alternate, as shown in the first picture above. The other two pictures show tacking your final open chain stitch. After tightening the link, remove your needle and replace it with a pin. This makes sure you don’t accidentally pull the loop too tight while making the first tack. Then tack as usual in each corner. Although a long-tailed open chain is also not common, it would make sense to tack with stitches the same height as each chain stitch, completing the ladder-like shape. Alternatively you can make tiny tacks as shown and add a straight stitch across the top of the open chain, closing it into a series of boxes.

The larger picture above shows both chain and open chain made with embroidery floss, and additionally what open chain might look like if you don’t use right angles for the corners.

You can find additional instructions and versions of the chain stitch on Sharon B’s In A Minute Ago and Sarah’s Hand Embroidery Tutorials.

Blanket stitch

The blanket stitch can be thought of as a sequence of interlinked fly stitches. Plain old blanket stitch is on the lower left of the picture above. Each stitch is an L, and together they form a sequence of open-topped (or open-bottomed, etc) boxes. For some ease of reference, I’ll refer to the “in-line side,” “corner,” and “leg” of each stitch: the corner is the spot caught by the next stitch or the final tack, the in-line sides form a continuous line of yarn, and the legs stick out perpendicularly from that line of yarn.

Bring your needle up at the end of the first in-line side and down at the end of the first leg. Come back up at the corner (1st picture above) and catch your yarn, tightening it into an L shape. That corner is now the in-line end of the next stitch (2nd picture above). When you get to the end make a tacking stitch as usual (3rd picture above) or make a long tacking stitch for symmetry.

Blanket stitch on the edge of a sewn item is the typical basis for a crochet edging, such as around the opening of a pillowcase. On the edge of a piece the details of working the stitch are slightly different, so I will point you to futuregirl’s comprehensive tutorial for that.

Closed blanket stitch looks much more complicated than regular blanket stitch, but isn’t really, and gives a great look. It’s blanket with the in-line sides alternately longer and shorter and neighboring legs leaning toward each other. The first two pictures above show two options for beginning. The first, which is what it shown in later pictures, gives a short in-line side to begin; the second has no length to the in-line end: it’s just a straight stitch. In any case, come up at the in-line end and down at the end of the leg, back up at or close to the in-line end, catching your yarn. This stitch should be more open than a standard blanket stitch: a larger than 90 degree angle. After tightening, stitch down for the next leg at the same point as the previous leg, and up to make a corner that is smaller than 90 degrees (3rd picture above). I’ve tried make my legs symmetric, so a line drawn down the center of the triangle is perpendicular to the in-line sides.

When you get to the second “tooth,” you can once again choose whether to have any length to the in-line side of the stitch (1st and 2nd pictures above). The first picture shows how the final sample was made. At the end make a tacking stitch as usual; the 3rd picture above shows one with length matching the initial in-line side.

The pictures above are just little doodles made with blanket and closed blanket. The first was done with embroidery floss and shows a bit of angling to the blanket stitch. The second one, in yarn, is all standard blanket stitch, but curved strongly. You can see when the legs are on the inside of the curve the in-line sides want to roll in, but there is no such problem when the legs are on the outside of the curve.

You can find additional instructions and versions of the blanket stitch on Sharon B’s In A Minute Ago (which includes feather stitch, below) and Sarah’s Hand Embroidery Tutorials.

Feather stitch

The feather stitch can also be thought of as a series of interlinked fly stitches, with a different orientation and arrangement.

As in fly stitch, the links of a feather stitch are more V-shaped than L-shaped. The pictures above show the construction of a feather stitch in which alternating sides of the Vs form a (nearly) straight line. The first upward stitch is the end toward the inside of the feather, and the first downward stitch is toward the outside. Come up to catch your yarn where the inside end of the next stitch should be (1st picture above), and continue by stitching down on the outside (2nd picture above). Tack with a tiny stitch (3rd picture above) or a longer stitch that makes a stem of sorts (see picture below).

Varying the length and angle of the free arms and tacking arms can result in a big visual difference. You can find additional instructions and versions of the feather stitch on Sarah’s Hand Embroidery Tutorials.

Visit the table of contents post for this series or all posts labeled “embroidery on crochet.”

The post Embroidery on Crochet 3: Linked stitches appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

We continue to learn how to embroider crocheted fabric with “formal” embroidery stitches, which we’ll explore for the rest of the series. This episode covers isolated stitches that may be used separately or together, to draw features or other images. Remember that I would love to hear your comments and answer your questions!

As before, the photos link to larger versions, and the full post is behind the cut.

Lazy Daisy

The lazy daisy, or detached chain stitch, is a teardrop-shaped stitch formed from a loop of yarn that’s caught by a small stitch.

Bring your needle up where you want the point of the teardrop to be. You will stitch down into the same point, and before tightening the yarn, stitch back up at the opposite end of the teardrop. Catch the yarn on the needle (1st picture above) and pull it until it is not floppy, but is still rounded. Stitch back down in the same spot, but on the opposite side of the caught strand (2nd picture above). Be careful not to pull too tightly here as well, as it is easy to acciedntally pull this little tacking stitch down inside the piece. You may also stitch a distance away to make a long-tailed lazy daisy (3rd picture above).

When lazy daisies are grouped together, usually the points of the teardrops are closest. If you make a group of them in a circle, sharing the same teardrop point, it looks like a flower, which gives this stitch its name. In the Medieval Fantasy: King pattern by Kati Galusz, the king’s coat is adorned with frog-closure-like clusters of lazy daisies similar to the second picture above.

Fly Stitch

Fly stitch is quite similar to lazy daisy; you make it essentially the same way, except the first downward stitch of fly is a distance away from the first upward stitch, instead of in the same spot. Fly stitches are also typically pulled more tightly than lazy daisies, so the caught thread becomes a V instead of a loop.

Your fly will be a V (short-tailed) or a Y (long-tailed), and in either case you start by stitching up at one top point. Stitch down at the other and back up again at the base of the V or junction of the Y, catching your yarn under the needle (1st picture above). If you are making a V, stitch back down in the same spot, on the opposite side of the caught strand (2nd picture above); if you are making a Y, stitch down a ways away (3rd picture above). Again, be sure not to tack so tightly that the point of the V disappears into your fabric. You can, of course, make a tacking stitch off at an angle; the adaptability of embroidery stitches is bottomless.

Kool Kat above was made with a long-tailed fly stitch, three straight stitches, and two short-tailed lazy daisies.

Knots

Knots are a common element in crochet embroidery. French knots give little bead-like dots on the surface of your fabric. Less-used bullion knots make thick rope-like lines or loops.

The failsafe way to make a French knot is this: bring your needle up at the point at which you want the knot. Pinch your yarn several inches above the fabric and then, holding the needle by its eye as usual, lay the side of your needle against the yarn between your pinch and the fabric. By moving the hand that is pinching the yarn, wrap the yarn around the needle 2-4 times (1st picture above). Insert the needle back into the fabric not in the exact location where it came up, but around or through an adjacent strand of yarn (2nd picture above). Otherwise, even if the knot does not disappear into the fabric when you tighten it, it could be pushed inside the piece at a later time. Pull the yarn lightly to snug the wraps down around the needle, right at the fabric (3rd picture above), and then bring the needle out in some other location and tighten the yarn. For more pictures of this technique, see Sublime Stitching.

The bullion knot is also made by wrapping yarn around the needle, but it has a slightly more complicated setup. If you want your bullion to be attached to the fabric at points A and B, bring the needle up at A and then insert it through the fabric like a safety pin from B to A (1st picture above). Wrap the yarn around the needle enough times to cover the distance from A to B (2nd picture above). Tug the yarn to tighten the wraps down around the needle toward the fabric, but err on the side of slightly loose, because it can be hard to pull the yarn through the wraps when they are tight. Pinch the wraps lightly with two fingers while you pull the needle first up away from the fabric, and then toward (or really past) the opposite end of the knot. Tighten until the wraps lie flat against the fabric (3rd picture above), and then insert your needle back down at B to finish.

If you wrap more times than necessary to span the distance between A and B, the bullion will stand away from the fabric in a little arch.

We finish this episode with a simple face of two French knots and one bullion knot.

Visit the table of contents post for this series or all posts labeled “embroidery on crochet.”

The post Embroidery on Crochet 2: Separated stitches appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

Here we are! The first post in the series. As we explore embroidering crochet fabric, please do leave me any questions or comments you have. I love to experiment and will work out any answers I don’t already have.

Two notes: All photos may be clicked to reach larger versions. To keep the front page of the blog from being overwhelming, I’m going to cut each of these posts after the table of contents. The rest is after the jump!

Beginning and ending

A while ago I wrote a post about securing and hiding yarn ends in amigurumi, and mentioned it could be used in reverse to begin a length of embroidery floss or yarn. Let’s begin by recapping that method, with some new photos.

Yarn secured through your crochet stitches may peek out no matter how careful and skilled you are. If there is a spot on your piece that will be less visible (under an ear, in the shadow of a limb, etc), you can hide the yarn by securing it in that spot. On the present piece I’ll use the base for hiding the yarn.

To keep a fuzzy clipped tail from peeking out of the stitches if they stretch and compress with handling, stitch completely under the fabric and back up again 2-3 inches away (1st picture above). Carefully pull the yarn just far enough to hide its end inside the crochet piece. Then put your needle through the centers of a row of stitches to secure the yarn with friction (2nd picture above). Depending on how much handling the piece will see you may want to go back and forth multiple times. Finally, stitch back under the crochet fabric completely and emerge where you wish to begin the embroidery (3rd picture above).

At the end you’ll reverse this process, stitching down to the hidden location, securing your yarn, stitching under the fabric for a short distance to hide the cut end, coming up and clipping your yarn close to the surface. See the aforementioned earlier post for photos of that process.

If you use embroidery floss be aware that it being smaller and smoother than yarn makes it harder to secure. Even for an item that won’t see much strain you may find you want to make at least one U-turn securing the initial end so you don’t pull it out when embroidering.

Stitching on crochet fabric

Crochet fabric is not like woven fabric. It has gaps and a lot of hills and valleys. Here are some considerations.

• The more tightly your fabric is stitched, the more you can treat it like woven fabric. Knitted fabric, while not our topic here, can often be treated similarly to woven fabric as well. If you intend to thoroughly cover a region and your piece is fairly solid, you can stitch wherever you like, piercing yarn or stitching into gaps. I’ll point you to a tutorial on embroidering on a hat using waste canvas, which is an evenweave fabric that sits on top of what you want to embroider and is removed afterward. Everything we do in this series will apply to more tightly crocheted fabric as well as gappier fabric.
   
• In general I think it is better to stitch between the strands of your crochet, for two reasons:
  
  1. If you pierce a strand, it can be apparent and look messy. You can see in the pictures above that it depends on where you pierce the strand, but when a little bit of yarn is between your stitch and a gap, it’s highly visible.
  2. (A more significant reason in my opinion:) If you keep your stitches between strands, it is easier to undo stitches, or simply shift your needle to a different spot if you decide the first spot wasn’t right after all. You can see in the pictures below that after stitching right next to my yarn in the same spot and out a ways away, the yarn is completely relocated — no green is visible under the stitches between the two points. I frequently put my needle out in some random location to tighten a stitch so I can look at it before deciding what stitch to make next.
  

  You still have plenty of options for where to stitch!
   

• Although even single crochet fabric is not a grid, it bears some resemblance to cross-stitch fabric. The texture gives it some distinct differences, though, that affect stitching. Consider the photo below, of crochet fabric. Each upside-down V (each model in this series was crocheted starting with the top) is the post of a single crochet stitch, and has four gaps associated with it, roughly at the corners of the post.
  

  If you stitch between neighboring gaps and pull tightly, as in the first picture above, the stitch will all but disappear into the crevice of the fabric. Stitching along a straight line of gaps but farther than just between neighbors (as in the rightmost stitch of the second picture above) makes the strand stay up and visible, but it still sinks into the fabric a bit. Stitching with any diagonal shift bumps the strand up above the fabric, as seen in the other stitches of the second picture above. These both have advantages and disadvantages. A stitch made along a crevice stays put but doesn’t assert itself; a stitch made diagonally gives dimension to the feature being added but might be prone to shifting around.
   

• I’d like to reiterate that it is important, because of the texture of the fabric, not to pull your embroidery stitches too tightly — especially if you are working with floss rather than yarn. Just as when you place a slip knot on your hook to begin a crochet chain, you don’t want the stitch to be loose, but you also don’t want it under any tension. Pull your stitches only until they lie flat and smooth against the fabric.
   
• Particular to stuffed items is the need to work around fiberfill. Yarn needles are fairly blunt, which is in general a desirable characteristic, but they don’t penetrate stuffing well, which can lead to the needle pushing stuffing out through the crochet fabric. To avoid this, try to keep your needle close to and flat against the fabric on the inside.
  

  If you do get a little cocoon of stuffing around your needle, after completing the stitch you can hold on to the yarn and push the stuffing back inside with a stuffing tool. The one shown above started life as a plastic yarn needle. I clipped off the end of the eye and lightly sanded the resulting prongs.

Running stitch and backstitch

A straight stitch is any stitch you make by coming up in one location, stitching down in another location, and tightening the thread into a straight line connecting those two points. If you make a number of these in a row, you get running stitch, shown below.

Running stitch is great when you want something to look “sewn,” but for amigurumi features you typically want a continuous line instead of a dashed line. There are two easy way to do that. The first is simply to make a second line of running stitch that “connects the dots” of the first line, obtaining something called Holbein stitch or double running stitch. The last picture above is of turning around and filling in the gaps just that way. The completed line is second from top in the big picture above.

The second way to get a continuous line of stitches is with backstitch, which is a very sturdy stitch. The first two pictures above show the first two motions of making a line of backstitch: move back one stitch length for the downward motion and forward two stitch lengths for the upward motion. The third picture is of ending the last stitch in the line.

With either a backstitch or a double running stitch, the spots where stitches meet may be quite apparent, as the stitch ends sink into the gaps of the crochet fabric. We’ll meet one way to manage that in part 4 of this tutorial series, with a whipped backstitch, but meanwhile here’s a tutorial from Salihan Crafts where she shows you a version of double running stitch that “connects the dots” of running stitch in a gapless way.

The last two pictures, above, are of double running stitch (left) and backstitch (right) done in embroidery floss.

Satin stitch

Satin stitch is the name applied to a bunch of close, parallel straight stitches, used to solidly fill in a region. We’ll also look at other non-woven filling stitches.

To fill in a rectangular shape, start by stitching between opposite gaps. The direction you stitch may depend on the look you want, but if it doesn’t matter you will likely get a neater result by stitching across the shorter direction. The first picture above has three stitches between each pair of gaps. I got them to lie smoothly by placing them with my finger before pulling the yarn snug. You can see they nearly fill the space; to finish I pierced the crochet stitches between neighboring trios (2nd picture above) and laid one more stitch down in each spot.

Sometimes you have to work by feel. For this triangular shape (animal nose?) I started by stitching in the gaps, added stitches piercing strands, and finally added an extra stitch in the middle and right-hand gaps because that was where it looked bare.

For a larger triangle, you can fill in a lower layer on the wider portion and then stitch the full length on top of it. In this case I also stitched crosswise along the top (seen in the larger picture, above); if I had wanted to fill blanks with such a stitch without having a bar across that end of the triangle I would have laid the crosswise stitch first and made sure my other stitches enclosed it.

Since embroidery floss is much thinner, it takes a lot more stitches to fill a space. I did not depend on purely parallel stitches in this case, although I possible could have if I’d made multiple stitches not just from gap to gap, but between the spots where I pierced my crochet stitches. The last picture shows a crosswise stitch along the top and (faintly) the bottom.

This last example shows both a triangular shape made with embroidery floss, and what I mean by enclosing a crosswise stitch with the main filling stitches: the centermost vertical stitch encloses the crosswise stitch along the bottom.

Cross stitch and stars

Cross stitch is an embroidery stitch often used as the sole stitch on a work. It’s popular for use on knitted and crochet fabric, as well. With no effort whatsoever I found half a dozen tutorials about cross-stitching on crochet fabric, including these from Moogly and CraftStylish.

The bottommost portion of the picture above shows straight stitches made as a row of Vs covering the Vs of the posts. It could be considered the crochet version of duplicate stitch from knitting, and can be used in place of cross stitch to embroider images on crochet.

A cross stitch is just an X made from two straight stitches. Typically you make a row of slanted stitches all at once (as in the first picture above), and cover them with a row of stitches slanted the opposite direction. The standard for cross-stitching on crochet is to make the X over one single crochet post, but you can make it however you’d like. In the second picture above the left-hand batch of cross stitches is made over the posts, and the right-hand batch (to which the first picture belongs) is made askew so only the lower half of each stitch crosses a post.

If you add a plus on top of the X, you have double cross stitch. If you don’t want to pierce threads you’ll need at least a 2×2 block of single crochet posts to work over, but you can make a smaller one by stitching through the sides of the post. You can see both cross stitch and double cross stitch made with embroidery floss in the larger picture above.

If you like this look, you might try Montenegrin, a three-stitch version of cross stitch that might look quite cool on crochet.

Freehand weaving

In weaving, you stitch some kind of framework and then use it as your base for filling in the opening. We’ll see more formal weaving in part 4 of this series.

The easiest error to make in any kind of weaving is piercing the strands of the framework. If you pierce the framework your strand is trapped in that location, which won’t always matter but often will.

Of course you can make woven patches that have the over-under grid construction of woven fabric. Here I’ve chosen my colors to make a sort of plaid. If you wanted to embroider, say, a patch on the knee of a crocheted doll, this would give a great look. You can see in the 3rd picture above that I pierced the leftmost vertical strand with the bottom horizontal strand and no amount of manipulation with the needle would get it to lie smoothly along the bottom.

The simplest kind of weaving consists of outlining your shape and then stitching around and around the outline (needle always pointing as it does in the 2nd picture above). As with satin stitch, guide your stitches by hand to lie where you want them. You can also stitch over-under here, coming up outside one strand and then scooping under the opposite strand to end up outside it. The trade-off is that it “looks woven.” If you stitch around and around, it looks like satin stitch.

This batch of photos shows over/under weaving again. I’ve outlined an irregular shape, plus stitched down its center. The center line could have been a single stitch, as it is straight, but that would be prone to shifting side to side. I broke it into two stitches for stability, which is something the “around and around” example of weaving, above, could also have benefited from.

Over/under in this case, with three framework lines across, means that when stitching in one direction you are under the outside strands and over the inside, and coming back the other way you are over the outside strands and under the inside.

If your shape is roughly circular, it may be easier to fill with a spray of stitches that all cross the center point. If you are neat (I was not) this can give you a lovely fan effect as you might see on a hand-wound ball of yarn.

The large picture above also shows weaving done with embroidery floss.

Many people will find this is all the embroidery they need to happily decorate all their crochet items. If you want some fancier stitches, stay tuned for parts 2, 3, and 4!

Visit the table of contents post for this series or all posts labeled “embroidery on crochet.”

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I am very excited to announce a blog post series I have been wanting to do for quite some time: an in depth study of embroidering on crochet. In particular, we’ll discuss embroidery on closed crochet pieces such as amigurumi, where you don’t have access to the interior of the piece.

The series will be in four parts, two in the next few days and two in a week, divided as so:

	1. Basics and freehand stitching. Covers securing ends, working on crochet fabric, running stitch, backstitch, cross stitch, satin stitch, and freehand weaving.
	2. Separated stitches. Covers lazy daisy, fly stitch, French knot, bullion knot, and some variations.
	3. Linked stitches. Covers chain stitch, blanket stitch, feather stitch, and some variations.
	4. Weaving, whipping, and couching. Covers threaded and whipped backstitch, Pekinese stitch, spider wheels, couching, and detached woven picots.

There will be many progress photos, links to alternate instructions for various stitches, and all the tips I can muster about neat and easy embroidery on crochet. Please do let me know if you have questions or would like to see more details or additional variations. Until tomorrow — happy stitching!

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We amigurumi makers have a big advantage when it comes to hiding our yarn tails: a side of the crochet that will never show. We never have to have that little fuzzy cut yarn end in our stitches, waiting to peek out. Here’s how I hide it. (The red yarn was joined at the last stitch purely for visibility; it reality it would be orange like the rest.)

Above: After stitching whatever drawstring method you prefer for closing the final hole in your piece, put the needle down through the opening and out the side of the piece to tighten the drawstring. This prevents your final round from being pulled outward to form a nub. Run the needle through some stitches around the side and back out again. Don’t tighten too much or the piece will compress! [1]

Above: Make a U-turn with the yarn, stitching under the intervening strands enough to make sure the base of the U isn’t lying on top of your crochet stitching. Run it through another line of stitches. Finally, put it back into the piece at the spot where it emerges from the stitches, and run it entirely inside and out again a ways away. Clip the yarn close to the stitching and massage the piece if necessary to get the tail to disappear inside.

After the cut: using this technique in embroidering and fine-tuning pieces.

You can use this technique in reverse for the beginning of embroidery floss or yarn: supposing the part you want to embroider is the front, insert your needle on one side and out the other (or out the back if the piece is large). Pull only until the end disappears inside the piece. Run the yarn or floss through some stitches, and then back into the inside of the piece and out where you want to embroider. Secure the final end of the yarn or floss in the way described above.

This has the added advantage that you can hide your thread securing in a less noticeable place. Strongly contrasting yarn or floss is likely to show through the stitches no matter how neatly you work, so this way you can put it in the shadow of another part of the ami, or simply on the back side.

[1] Compression of stitches can be used to your advantage, of course, if you have a narrow region that you’d like to emphasize, as in the bee below. I ran the yellow yarn though the yellow stitches of the neck and tightened. The effect is subtle – click the photos to enlarge them – but noticeable.

I learned this somewhere along the way for hand sewing. With my hand-stitched potholders, after finishing a length of embroidery floss and knotting, run the needle between the layers a ways, pull slightly taut, and snip. When you release, the thread will disappear into the layers, never to be seen again (one hopes!).

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