Good morning.
Prepare yourself: I’m getting ready to Nerd Out on embroidery.
Below, you’ll see a picture of two leaves.
They pretty much both look the same.
Today, we’re going to chat a little bit about embroidery stitches – in particular about what you see on these leaves – and how you can best tell what stitch is what.
This article will morph into a tutorial down the road, and then we will troubleshoot some problems, talk about solutions, and look at alternatives.
All that, just from two leaves!
There they are. Two green leaves.
There’s nothing too, too special about them, in the Scheme of All Things Embroidery.
They don’t look awful. In fact, I’d say they look ok for what they are. They’re pretty smooth. They look like a decent embroidered representation of what they’re supposed to be.
Are they the prettiest embroidered leaves in the world? Maybe not. But they’re solid, decent leaves.
I used five strands of floss in the needle to stitch both of them. (Why five instead of six? No real reason, except I had used one strand from the six for something else, so I started with five and stuck with five.)
I’m working on linen.
I sketched the leaves with a pencil, straight onto the fabric.
As you can see, there’s nothing too complicated here!
So, what stitch did I use on the leaves? Are both leaves the same stitch?
They look the same, don’t they?
Normally, on any given embroidery project, if you’re stitching the same shaped element in the same manner and the same color so that it looks like all the other elements that are the same, you’d likely use the same stitch for each element, correct?
And that would make sense.
BUT… for this demo, I used two different stitches.
Can you tell what’s what?
Do you see a difference?
The only possible way to tell that there’s a definite difference between these to leaves is to flip the work over and look at the back.
The back of embroidery is where you can normally find, with certitude, all the clues that tell you how something was stitched.
And there’s the back.
Not too lovely.
But you can see that there are two decidedly different approaches to those leaves.
Now that you’ve seen the back, can you work out how each leaf was stitched?
Here they are again from the front:
And here they are, with their corresponding letters, on the back:
Ponder that, and we’ll continue the conversation with a tutorial shortly.
And then I’ll tell you what’s wrong with the leaves.
And then we’ll troubleshoot the problem and I’ll suggest some solutions.
All that. From two leaves.
You might be thinking Who Cares?!?!
Well, all I can say is, Welcome to Embroidery Nerddom. I hang out here a lot. It’s a fun place to be.
Have a love Wednesday!
Mary, you are so funny! I love your blog so much!
Thanks, Sheila! š
You got me! Iām rediscovering embroidery after many many years and loving it!
Looking forward to the explanation. Thanks for the fun challenges.
Thanks, Kathi – more on this particular topic coming soon! š
Yay! I love where you hang out! Can hardly wait to learn more! I think I recognize one stitch but the other one has me baffled.
“You might be thinking Who Cares?!?!”
Well, I care…I’m up for learning all of it. I am a beginner, but I mostly only use your site to learn because I like your style of teaching. I appreciate all of the images as I am a visual learner.
Looking forward to the next posts. Keep up the great work! Kay
LOL! Thanks, Kay!!
Embroidery Nerddom is my favorite place. Love this kind of detail discussion. Thanks!
I love deep discussions of embroidery stitch construction
I’m with Sheila, I love your newsletter and look forward to it’s arrival. Right now I really appreciate it. A bit of time thinking about “fun” stuff. My home burnt to the ground a week ago with all my family heirlooms and all my stitching stuff (boohoo, the 5 round boxes I purchased not too long ago from you to stitch up for gifts all went up in flames with all the rest )… It’s nice to escape that for a bit and just think “nerdy”. Thanks for the peaceful moments Mary.
Oh, Carol, I am so sorry to hear about that! I received an email from someone who mentioned a house fire of someone on Facebook, but I couldn’t discover who they were talking about, and it seemed like a phishing email to me (you’d be surprised how many we get). That is a real tragedy! I hope you have family close by who are helping you through with all the necessities, a roof over your head, emotional support, meals, and so forth. You’re definitely in my thoughts! I’m glad my “embroidery nerdiness” can provide a little distraction. :-/