Continuing with some basic embroidery tips here, today we’re going to look at taking a sharp corner with stem stitch. While the technique applies to stem stitch specifically, you can look beyond stem stitch and apply the idea to many stitches.

In the photos, I’m stitching scallops, but this tip applies to any sharp change in line direction where an angle is involved (so, squared corners, tips of stars, and so forth).

A couple weeks ago, we looked at how to join up a circle when working chain stitch. Today, here’s a similar tip for stem stitch.

The idea here is how to join up with a line of stem stitch “from the rear” – that is, when you’re stitching towards another bit of already-stitched stem stitch, whether it’s a circle or any other shape, and you want to make a seamless join in the stitching.