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Embroidery
Embroidery
Embroidery is the art of decorating fabric with stitches of colored thread. You stamp a design on the fabric, usually a pillowcase, a straight cloth for a bureau or a larger piece for a tablecloth and follow the design with different colors. In free embroidery, you don’t worry about the direction of the thread in the cloth and just place the design wherever you want it. In counted thread embroidery, often referred to as cross-stitch you start off with a plain piece of Aida cloth and create the design on the cloth. In this case you don’t stamp the design on the cloth, but follow a graph on paper to help you.
To do embroidery, also called needlecraft, you do need an ordinary sewing needle with an eye through which you place the thread, knotting it at the end so that it will not come through. If you use heavy material you may need to use a pricker to poke holes in the material. You do need scissors for cutting the threads and a thimble to protect your finger when pushing the needle through the fabric.
The stitches used in embroidery are what make the design stand out along with the colors. For cross-stitch, you form X’s with the thread by putting the needle through the holes in the cloth diagonally from corner to corner. Other commonly used stitches include:
• Blanket Stitch: This is often called a buttonhole stitch and is used for finishing the edges around the cloth, such as in a tablecloth. You can slope the stitches from left to right or make two or three stitches close together and then leave a space between the next set of stitches.
• Bullion Knot: This is a long roll of stitches placed very close together. To make this stitch you place the needle through the fabric to the desired end of the roll. Then you bring the needle back to the starting point to make a tunnel. Wind the thread around the needle eight to ten times and draw it through the tunnel you made with the original stitch. The insert the needle back through the starting point and draw the roll so that it lies evenly against the fabric.
• Feather Stitch: This is a series of long and short stitches used to form a shape, such as a heart or for flowers, giving it an irregular look on the inside but all stitches are even on the outside.
• French Knot: This is used for the center of flowers. You bring the needle up through the center of the area where you want to make the knot. Wind the thread around the needle and insert the needle back down through the same area quite close to where you brought it up through. Use the thumb of your left hand to keep the thread in place until you have the knot secure.
• Satin Stitch: This stitch consists of simply going back and forth over a design with the loops quite close together bringing the needle back to the same area every time.