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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Jump past uses of knots to tying knots or additional resources.

Uses of knots

Shoelace tying begins with a half knot, which is also the first half of the square knot. The square knot is perhaps the fundamental knot for tying two strands together. While Animated Knots and The Morrow Guide to Knots both say this is not a good knot under strain, the amount of strain in crafting is typically far less than the limit for this to hold. I use it mostly in crochet: in a chain bracelet, it ties the beginning and ending strands together. If I change to a new strand of yarn in amigurumi, I might tie the ends of the old and new strands together with a square knot. I sometimes tie the beginning and ending tails of embroidery yarn together this way, for securely stitched facial features and so forth.

To put a starting knot in a length of sewing thread I use a few overhand knots, and to finish off at the end I use a few half hitches around a stitch or a bit of fabric. The half-hitch is also the fundamental knot of friendship bracelets and tatting. The overhand knot is useful for tying tassels, because the thread or yarn ends will lie in a smooth bundle; ends coming out of a square knot want to point away from each other.

The slip knot is used mostly in crochet as well, though it is useful whenever you want a removable knot (say, to hold a strand in place during work). In crafting we tend to use the term “slip knot” regardless of which end of the cord is tied around the other, but in knot tying they are separated into slip knot (released by pulling the short end) and noose knot (released by pulling the long end). Both have their uses as beginning crochet knots: the noose knot, also referred to as the locking slip knot, can’t change shape after you stitch on it without distorting the rest of the work (and hence won’t want to change shape). The knot tyer’s slip knot, also called the adjustable slip knot by crafters, can be used as a magic ring substitute: stitch your first round all into the first chain, and then pull the cut end to tighten that chain and close the starting hole.

Finally, the lark’s head knot is an easy way to attach a hanging loop to an object, and preferable if the loop should be removable. It can also be used for fringe, but isn’t that secure – a little picking can loosen the strands and ultimately remove them. It is the knot used for latch-hook rugs, where the extra friction from using fuzzy yarn and having many neighboring strands of fuzzy yarn make up for the insecurity. [Latch-hooking is not to be confused with rug hooking, which uses no knots.]

Tying Knots

Links below are to other pages about knots; most are to Grog’s Animated Knots.

• Half Hitch

  The half hitch is an attaching knot in sailing; it must be made around another item. I wasn’t completely honest about its uses, because in crafting an extremely similar knot called the figure four is used at least as often and fairly interchangeably (in fact, in macrame it is called the half hitch). The figure four requires one end of the thread be attached and the knot be made right up against the point of attachment. The photo below is of a half hitch; the diagram is a figure four. To make it a half hitch you would take the thread right to left through the loop on the left (which would be a good idea in the diagram, where the thread emerges from the fabric far away from the stitch it is knotted around). The figure four is the knot used for friendship bracelets; in that and macrame direction matters, with the figure four often called a “left knot” and its mirror a “figure P” or “right knot.”

  In either case, make the knot by passing one end of the strand around an object and wrapping it around the other end of the strand. For a half hitch, come through the loop you formed by crossing the strands; for a figure four just make sure the loose end is trapped under the fixed end.

  In sewing, the object you knot around is a tiny bit of fabric or one of the last stitches that was made. One knot might not stay put, but a few of them will hold your thread very well.

  

  You may notice the half hitch is really an overhand knot in disguise, made around another object and given its own name because it is typically made and used differently.

• Lark’s Head Knot (AKA cow hitch)

  The lark’s head is another joining knot, but instead of joining the end of a strand it joins the middle (or something inward a bit). Bend the strand and wrap the bend around the item you are tying on to (if necessary you could pull it with a hook). Finally, pass the ends of the strand through the loop and tighten. If you wish to make a lark’s head knot onto fabric, the easiest way to do it is thread both ends of the strand on a needle so it has a loop dangling from it, stitch through the fabric where you want the knot, and pass the needle through the loop before tightening.

  

  To a macrame artist the knot above would be a reverse lark’s head; the lark’s head would be the version where the vertical strands are underneath the horizontal bar of the loop.

  For a fancier version with more friction (and hence resistance to coming unpicked) try the cat’s paw.

• Overhand Knot

  The overhand knot is a half knot tied with the ends of a single strand: cross one end over the other, making a loop, and pass it around the other end through the loop. This is my preferred way to tie a knot in the beginning end of a length of sewing thread. Typically I make at least two, with more if I need a larger knot. I never got the hang of the “wrap and roll” knot, much less the one that’s made around the needle and passed down to the far end of the thread.

  

  To make a larger knot with more friction, and hence more hold, pass the end of the strand through the loop four or five times instead of once. The result is called a multiple overhand knot. The Morrow Guide to Knots advises making sure that in the wrapping, one end of the rope is coiled around the other, which is straight. Then pull abruptly to tighten the knot so the wraps completely hide the rest. This is a good knot to put weight on the end of a cord.

• Slip Knot and Noose Knot

  The slip knot and noose knot are an overhand knot tied so that one end of the strand loops back through the knot, without crossing a strand in between. The difference between them is which end goes back through. As with the half hitch, though, the overhand knot idea isn’t the way to think about tying these.

  Although you will see many instructions to tie a slipknot with a crochet hook, I always do it by hand. Decide which end of the strand you want to be able to pull to release the knot (control the size of the loop, or pull it out of the knot entirely to untie it) – let’s call this the release end. Hold the opposite end in your left hand, near where you want the knot. Loop the strand as though writing a cursive lowercase e, with the release end on top, and pinch the crossover point with your left hand. Reach down through the loop with your right hand and pull up the release end, so just a loop of it comes up. Hang onto that loop and the release end, and pull the end in your left hand to tighten the knot. In the photos below, the release end is toward the right.

  

  As I mentioned above, the terminology is different between crocheting and knot tying. The standard crochet slipknot is the knot tyer’s noose knot, also called the locking slipknot; it can’t work loose after you’ve continued crocheting. Its release end is the long end. The knot tyer’s slip knot is also called that for the crocheter, and more specifically the adjustable slipknot; it can loosen up after you’ve continued stitching but conversely can be tightened down. Its release end is the short end. As long as you can secure the end after tightening it sufficiently, it is fine to use for crochet.

• Square Knot (AKA reef knot, sailor’s knot)

  The Boy Scouts say “right over left, left over right, makes a knot tidy and tight.” The square knot is composed of two half knots (the first picture below) made with the same strand on top: cross the strands and loop one around the other underneath. Cross the strands again, same strand on top as before, and loop one around the other under the cross but above the first half knot.

  

  The granny knot is what you get when you don’t keep the same strand on top for both half-knots. It is less secure. The Animated Knots page’s picture of it (see the top square knot picture, mouse over “granny knot”) even looks less secure.

  If the square knot is not secure enough for your purposes, try a surgical knot (mouse over “surgical knot”), which involves crossing the strands a second time in the first half-knot (or, if desired, both). If you want to get fancier, try the sheet bend, also called a weaver’s knot; fancier yet is the carrick bend, known in macrame as the Josephine knot.

Additional Resources

General Knotting: Grog’s Animated Knots is a thorough resource, especially for related knots and uses, although sometimes you have to use another source to find the name of the knot used on Grog’s site. Wikipedia’s list of knots is a good place for synonyms, and is also quite thorough. The Open Directory Project, which I always forget still exists and isn’t just an artifact of the Web circa 1996, has a list of links to various knot references for different purposes.

A practical and old use for knots is making netting, as taught at More Than Fish and Hammocks and Rita’s Netting Nook (note some “classes” on the latter page are not free). The related art of tatting creates lace; there is a nice photographic introduction at Atelier de Happa (though the page didn’t render quite right for me) and links to video instructions at Tatted Treasures. It is natural to move from tatting to macrame. Stone Brash Creative has a great macrame tutorial with lots of knots for that craft.

Decorative knotting for paracord, making bracelets and keychains and the like, is the content of Unique Ropecraft. From there I found a site for boondoggles, or what I would call plastic lanyards. For traditional Chinese knots, try chineseknotting.org or a page from a New Jersey Cultural Heritage site. I could not find a site dedicated to tying Celtic knots (though there are plenty dedicated to drawing them) but several can be found in the gallery on Fusion Knots, and Threads magazine has an article about weaving a Celtic knot to make clothing trim. There are many pages for friendship bracelet patterns, but the best introduction I found is at The Purl Bee.

Finally, I had an embroidery sampler panel on knots, and although most of my favorite online stitch dictionaries are not organized in a way that allows picking out knots, Sarah’s Hand Embroidery is the exception. Unfortunately there are no internal links so you’ll have to scroll and pay attention, but the stitch families are in alphabetical order and the knot family is tenth in line, with yellow and orange samples. Click on a photo to see stitching instructions.

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Fabric and thread to start: I like to start people with calico fabric (quilting cotton) and two strands of embroidery floss. That is a good combination weight-wise and those materials present no special challenges. Try other fabrics (coarsely woven, fuzzy or fluffy) and other threads (the full six strands of floss, perle cotton, ribbon) after becoming comfortable with the motions of embroidery. That shouldn’t be long, though, and then there are some rules of thumb for matching. Six strands of floss or something heavier like perle cotton is good on a very coarse fabric or to achieve a dimensional effect. On a puffy fabric such as fleece you’d likely want at least four strands of floss to keep the stitches from disappearing. For a smooth-surfaced fabric such as cotton or felt, two or three strands is good (for detail work a single strand might be employed).

Above: A sampling of materials. The fabric is cotton calico. The brown thread is Coats and Clark 6-stranded embroidery floss (6, 4, and 2 strands shown, left to right), the green at bottom is DMC perle cotton size 5, and the blue at top is Columbia-Minerva 100% wool “Persian-type” needlepoint and crewel yarn.

Needles: Embroidery needles tend to be fine and sharp, but unless you are working on unforgiving fabric (delicate silk, say), use whatever needle is comfortable to work with, has a large enough eye for the thread, and is sharp enough to pierce the fabric. Wetting and twisting the end of the thread between your fingers will help in threading.

Knots or Not Knots: Knotting is typically not done in embroidery; instead, you leave a few inches loose at the back and weave them under your stitches later (or to start, if it is not your first length of thread). The same is done to secure the opposite end. Sometimes you have to knot, however, such as if you are stitching around the edge of a piece of fabric. In that case two or three overhand knots to start and a half hitch to end are easiest.

Above left: Overhand knot. Above right: Half hitch.

Comfortable Stitching. To keep your hands and forearms from getting sore, stretch and rub them frequently. Make sure you are not gripping the work too tightly, and change your hand position regularly. If it is difficult to get the needle through the fabric, use a thimble to push and a bit of rubber to pull (you may buy one for the purpose, or cut a 1.5-2″ square of a rubber jar opener). As a right-handed stitcher, I find it is most comfortable to stitch with the needle pointing somewhere between left and forward, and to tighten the thread up or to the right. Experiment for the best solution for you – for me it is frequently not the direction given in stitch instructions.

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The chain stitch is a caught stitch. If you only did half of it the thread would tighten down to a tiny little straight stitch. To make it, with the thread to the front of the fabric, take the needle down right next to where it came up, and before you tighten the thread, bring the needle up again a bit away and catch the previous stitch’s thread. Now pull through and tighten (but not too much!) and you should have a teardrop. To finish the row, just make a little tacking stitch by taking the needle down just outside the final teardrop. That is also what you should do to end a thread. Begin a new thread by taking it up just inside the final teardrop and proceeding from there.

The back of chain stitch looks like the front of backstitch: a bunch of straight stitches end to end.

Just to try it out, instead of putting the needle down right next to where it came up to make the loop, I put it a bit back along the chain. The point end of the teardrop gets a little bit pointier, and the reverse-side stitches overlap a little.

If you decide to make the ends of the teardrop stitch a bit away from each other (perpendicular to the line of stitching), you can get open chain. This one’s a little more complicated because you can’t tighten the stitch until you’ve come up and gone back down again for the next teardrop. I recommend not pulling the needle all the way through the fabric on the down stitch and tightening by tugging the thread by hand, to avoid accidentally overtightening the thread for the next loop. That is not fatal, of course; you can always pull it back to the front of the fabric, but it is annoying.

If you decide to catch each loop of open chain under only one end of the following loop, it becomes feather stitch. Actually, in the second picture above, it starts out as our old friend Cretan stitch and only becomes feather when it starts getting that distinct V shape. Proper feather stitch alternates the side the free end sticks out on; if you keep the same side (say, always catching the previous loop with the left end of the next loop) it is called one-sided feather stitch and looks an awful lot like blanket stitch.

Feather stitch can look very different if you vary the position of the stitches. On the left below is long-armed feather, which has a plant-like look, and on the right is closed feather, which looks more like a trellis.

If you basically start from scratch every stitch with feather you get fly stitch. Properly speaking, fly stitch is an isolated stitch, and if you work it all in a line like the picture below it is closed fly.

To make fly stitch, with thread to the front of the fabric, bring the needle down a bit away and then, before tightening, back up to make a triangle with the three points. Catch the previous loop and tighten. Take the needle down through the fabric either just over the loop or a bit further in the direction the V points, and then back up to the side to start the next fly.

As with feather, you can vary the lengths and starting and ending positions of the stitches to get very different looks. Individual fly stitches are shown below as well.

Back to chain stitch for a couple more. The magic chain stitch is much easier to make than it looks. You need to thread two different color threads on your needle, full complement of strands of each.

The only difference from standard chain is that each time you come up you will catch the threads of only one color. Also, every other time you will have to tighten the thread by hand; the remaining time the color you want to tighten will be shorter than the caught color, and pulling the needle will suffice.

Finally, some isolated versions. On the left below is the isolated chain stitch, or lazy daisy. You get different effects making the tacking stitch long or short.

When diagonal straight stitches are laid on either side of a lazy daisy, the result is tete de boeuf. I have no idea why, since the rightmost stitch above, the wheatear, looks much more like a bull’s head to me. The wheatear is a hybrid stitch; it is a fly stitch finished off by an isolated chain.

Now, I know these stitches maybe don’t seem as decorative or a functional as the others – good for outlines and plants and not much else. However, they can be beautiful when done creatively. I went looking for examples and found a number: samplers on CRAFT show sometimes neat stitching and good color choice is all it takes. Susan at art of textiles has a long-stemmed fly stitch that reminds me of seedlings. And Raphaela at Textile Explorations, whose blog I will surely explore further, has entries dedicated to feather, chain, and detached chain.

That concludes the individual panels of my sampler. The embroidery class is in three weeks; we’ll see the finished sampler then.

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Properly speaking, straight stitch is an isolated stitch. Anything that involves only bringing the thread up at one point and taking it back down at a nearby point, far enough to make a dash. When you do this repeatedly at regular intervals, it is called running stitch. Running stitch looks the same on the front and the back, although offset by one stitch length. The back is shown mostly to give you an idea of securing the loose end of the thread.

Backstitch is slightly more complicated, but not too much so. In backstitch the stitches are worked in the opposite direction from the one in which the line grows: stitching right-handed, the line grows to the left, but the stitches are laid down left to right. The opposite is true when stitching left-handed (though again, take this with a grain of salt, since I make my stitches any which way – I think it is easier to put the needle through pointing from your working hand toward your nonworking hand). Come up through the fabric, back up one stitch length, put the needle through to the back and bring it up to the front two stitch lengths away.

The back side of the fabric has stitches twice as long as the front, doubled but offset. Working backstitch “upside-down” and carefully you get stem stitch. Here, the stitches are twice as long on the front as on the back. What makes this different from backstitch worked on the wrong side of the fabric is that the overlap keeps the new stitch on the same side of the old stitch. Some sources will say it is stem stitch if each new stitch is above the previous and outline stitch if it is below but I can’t imagine that mattering to anyone who wasn’t competing in some esoteric embroidery knowledge contest. These stitches are laid down in the same direction as the growth of the line (as the stitches on the wrong side of the fabric in backstitch are).

When the stitches become very slanted and overlap more and more, it becomes encroaching stem stitch and finally satin stitch, as on the right above, used to fill areas in embroidered images.

Split stitch is a relative of stem stitch where the overlap of stitches is very short, and the new stitch does not lie above or below the old, but instead comes up through it. Since I was working with two strands of embroidery floss I just came up between them. You make a stitch, backtrack just a little, come up through the old stitch, and repeat.

Holbein stitch is what you get when you double running stitch, offset so they form a continuous line.

The first picture also has an example of running stitch worked at irregular intervals, and straight stitch used to make a star. The second example uses three different running stitches, a variation on Holbein.

Finally, back to straight stitch proper, as it is the best stitch for drawing. The embroideries for my children’s book quilt use straight stitch as the primary stitch.

Somewhat unnecessarily, the green V stitches and the green 3-line stitches have names: arrowhead stitch and fern stitch, respectively. The others are just freehand, doodling with stitches.

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Oh, French knots. It took me so long to successfully, consistently make French knots. Of course, it didn’t help that I was trying them on Aida (cross-stitch) fabric, which has enormous holes — the better for your knot to pull through and completely come undone, my dear. They are one of the few stitches I think it is easier to make neatly on ordinary fabric.

This installment of the embroidery sampler tour covers multiple kinds of knots, and cross-stitch. I wasn’t sure I should even include cross-stitch, since it is so well covered elsewhere, but we’ll look at it in brief.

The knot panel of the sampler was originally supposed to also contain satin stitch, but I omitted that almost entirely, so it’s just a little light instead. I didn’t show the back, either, because it’s not illuminating. Here is the key to all knots: tighten the thread down around the needle before pulling the needle all the way through the fabric. If you leave the thread wrapped up around the needle while pulling the needle through, it will not stay neat. Tug on the loose end to get the wraps tightened down where the needle meets the fabric, and then put your thumb on them while pulling the needle through. Much better results.

The most common knot is the French knot, which is made simply by wrapping the thread twice around the needle and inserting the needle right next to where it came up – or even in the same space. I have seen directions to wrap clockwise and counter-clockwise, and I did both in the course of making the knots below. Can you tell any difference?

The shooting stars in the lower left are tailed French knots, made the same way as regular French knots except that the needle is inserted further away from where the thread came up. Tightening the knot before pulling the needle through is vital in this one. The little corkscrew is my effort to show the wrapping; the purple thread that goes through it is the needle, and it should point down and to the left. That is, the wrapping proceeds from eye to point. The green knots were made with four strands of floss instead of two.

A tailed French knot with several additional wraps becomes a bullion knot. Well, sort of. To make a bullion, after bringing the thread to the front of the fabric at a point we’ll call A, insert the needle a distance away and back up at A, without pulling it through at all (it should be going through the fabric like a safety pin). Wrap the thread five or six times around the needle, from eye to point again, and then pull the needle through. This is one where tightening the wraps on the needle too much is problematic, because it becomes difficult to get the needle through. However, if you tighten them gently and put your thumb on them while pulling, they should still make a reasonable bullion.

The second picture above was made with bullions and French knots. In the first picture, again, the green floss was four-stranded and the rest two-stranded, and the upper green bullion shows you what happens when you don’t put your needle in a full bullion-length away.

The colonial knot, on the left below, is supposed to be a larger knot than the French knot, and the Chinese knot, on the right, is a smaller one. I didn’t get an enormous difference among the three, honestly, but someone who’s worked more knots and has more consistency probably would. In both of them the thread is tacked down by the stitch. With thread on the front of the fabric and needle pointing toward the top of the work, the colonial knot is made by bringing the thread over the needle to the right, under the needle to the left and below (eye-side of) the first wrap, over the needle to the right again and under to the left and above (point-side of) the first wrap. Then the needle is inserted next to where the thread came up, the wraps tightened, and the needle pulled through.

The Chinese knot has a nifty feature where you can leave it untightened to get a loop. The thread coming out of the fabric is looped so the loose end is underneath the end coming out of the fabric, and the needle is inserted into that loop next to where the thread comes out of the fabric. The wrap can be tightened on the needle to make the simple knot, or left looser to get the loop effect.

Finally, the four-legged knot is almost a woven stitch. Make a vertical stitch and bring the needle up at one end of the horizontal stitch. Hold the thread straight across, slide the needle under the vertical stitch and over the thread that loops back from the horizontal bar to the eye of the needle. Tighten that down on the middle of what will become the cross, and insert the needle through the fabric at the opposite end of the horizontal stitch.

I don’t have a lot of patience for knots, but there are some who use them exclusively, such as in these commercial kits for small rugs and similar pieces. All in knots. They give an impressive texture.

Finally, we come to cross-stitch. My first ever needlework project was in cross-stitch, and I would guess it predated any of my sewing efforts as well.

A basic cross-stitch is made by making a diagonal stitch in one direction, and topping it with a diagonal stitch in the opposite direction. When you wish to make a row of stitches, it is neater and more efficient to make all the bottom stitches first, and then move back across the row with the top stitches. In fact, if you can stand it, make all the bottom stitches there are before making any top stitches (at least in a particular color). Cross-stitch definitely benefits from having all crosses made with the same diagonal stitch on top, and in fact you will be dinged for having stitches that don’t go the same direction if you enter a competition.

The method is to go diagonally down in front and straight up in the back. The back then ends up looking like a bunch of doubled vertical stitches (a vertical from laying down the bottom half of the cross-stitch, and a vertical from coming back across with the top halves).

As an aside, you have two options for starting the next stitch when moving across a row. Suppose you have made a diagonal from northwest to southeast. You could go due north or due east to start the next one. Embroidery stitches in general look nicer when you take the thread in right angles or tighter than when the angles are obtuse. In our example, going due north will take the thread 45 degrees from its previous direction, and going east will make the angle 135 degrees. Therefore, north is preferable.

This leads us to double cross-stitch, which makes a star. This stitch, even when used in the same manner as cross-stitch, is made one star at a time. Make either the cross first or the plus first, but be consistent, and when you move from one to the other take the thread across the back, not to a neighboring spot. That is, if you make the cross first and end in the southeastern corner, go to the north or west spot to start the plus, not the south or east part.

Finally, herringbone stitch. This relative of cross-stitch is not just a spread-out version – in fact you can make it quite tight together. The corners of your crosses no longer meet, and you alternate diagonal directions with each stitch. The method: make a diagonal stitch. Bring the needle back up horizontally behind where it went down, and make another diagonal stitch. Repeat.

Of course cross-stitch is most often used to “color in” regions and make pictures. You can see I free-handed the one below, but you can cross-stitch successfully on plain fabric by making pencil lines to guide you.

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I’m in the process of making an embroidery sampler for the class I’m hoping to teach in the fall, so I’ll work from the blanket stitch panel of that. There are four stitches I’ve used for potholder binding: blanket stitch, closed blanket stitch, up and down blanket stitch, and Cretan stitch. That last is usually classed with the feather stitches but it also has the feel of a blanket stitch family member.

In the upper left corner we have a front and back view of standard blanket stitch. The right end of the stitching is intended to help clarify the making of the stitch: come up through the fabric on the line you would like thread to run along (the edge if you are edging a blanket or stitching down binding). This is the northwest corner of a square. Stitch down through the fabric at the southeast corner, and before you tighten the thread, come up at the northeast corner and under the thread. When you tighten the stitch you should get two sides of a square. You’re now at the northwest corner of a new square.

I’m not a very good judge of lefty/righty business, since I make my stitches upside-down pretty regularly and, though nominally left-handed, stitch preferentially with my right hand, though my left will come into play if the space is too awkward for my right. However, it is easiest to stitch toward your stitching hand with this (it allows you to pull toward the next stitch and give resistance to the caught thread right at the corner), so if you are left-handed, either turn this over and stitch with the straight line on the bottom, or stitch up northeast, down southwest, and up northwest.

I’ve used this on a number of potholders, but none I’ve blogged about. You can imagine it, I’m sure.

To start a new thread, at the last corner of a square make a tiny stitch over the caught thread (this is also how I finish the whole thing) and knot or otherwise finish your initial thread. Take the new thread up where the final upward stitch of the previous thread had been (i.e., catching the thread a second time) and continue.

Ordinary blanket is convenient because it looks the same on the front and the back provided you are working at an edge, so you can continue the same stitch around your potholder loop.

Closed blanket stitch is very similar. It alternates a stitch with a short crossbar and a vertical that pushes out to the right further with a stitch with a long crossbar and a vertical that pushes out to the left, meeting the vertical of the previous stitch. It too looks the same on the back, and stops and starts the same way as standard blanket stitch.

I used closed blanket stitch on the butterfly potholders.

I started getting somewhat bored with blanket stitch and more recently tried a fancier version called up and down blanket stitch. You can see the finished potholders for this and Cretan stitch in the potholder tutorial entry. This has two steps, and the closeup spreads out the legs of the stitch before trying to show the construction:

Up and down blanket starts exactly like standard blanket, but instead of progressing to a new stitch immediately you take the needle down through the fabric next to where it has just come up, and bring it up next to the bottom end of the previous vertical. Catch the thread before tightening the stitch, and you’ll get a doubled vertical with a little holding stitch making the corners with the crossbars to the left and right.

To start a new thread it is best to finish after the standard blanket stitch portion. Start a new thread as for blanket, and make the second half of the current stitch.

Unfortunately, although up and down blanket is almost the same on the back, the verticals are further apart (at least mine are). You can either simply deal with that and use it on the potholder loop, or you can do what I did, which was to make paired whipstitches where the thread joining the pairs to each other went between the layers of bias tape. This was kind of laborious, though the look was good.

The process: after coming up, wrap around the edge of the tape, come up through one layer, slide the needle between the layers about a quarter inch over and then come up through the second layer. Repeat.

Finally, I tried Cretan stitch, which isn’t called a blanket stitch typically, but resembles a blanket stitch with the verticals alternating between going upward and downward from the crossbar. It didn’t feel as sturdy though it shouldn’t have enough stress on it in the context of potholder binding to matter.

To do this one, well, you could start exactly as you do for blanket stitch. When you come up at the northeast corner, it is now the southwest corner of the next square. Put your needle down at the new northeast corner and up through the southeast corner, catching the thread. You’re ready for the next stitch, at the northwest corner of the next square. The closeup starts halfway through that process and does the standard blanket second, and has the more-proper Cretan trait of not putting the northeast (for blanket) and southeast (for the flipped blanket) corners on the same horizontal line, but having four distinct lines of stitching.

To edge the potholder loop on this pair I just did a short whipstitch, matching the length of the verticals of the Cretan stitch.

And since I have them, an explanation of the remaining stitches:

Long and short blanket stitch is anything you create by varying the lengths of the verticals.

Double blanket stitch is simply two separate rows of blanket, the second made slightly above and trailing the first.

Buttonhole stitch is blanket stitch made very close and tight together, even slightly tighter than the middle section of this example.

And finally, if you put blanket stitch on a curve it can be used for motifs rather than just edging. You can see you get a very different look depending on whether the crossbar is on the outside or the inside of the curve.

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