One of the most common worries about embroidery is that you need to be a walking. talking stitch glossary, I hope this isn’t true as I would have my embroidery badge taken away! My advice to people in my classes is this, learn a few stitches really well and you can learn how to use them in your projects in different ways. For more inspiration you can visit my post on Stitches: New Approaches.

Today I’d like to focus on straight stitches, just using straight lines to create different patterns and textures. There a re a few different stitches that could fall under this category like satin stitch, long and short stitch and seed stitch but there is so much freedom to experiment.

The first image shows a variety of straight stitches on a scrap of boiled wool fabric, I used a variety of new and vintage threads to create different textures. It’s great when the threads catch the light differently when you’ve layered them up.

The second images shows straight stitches on calico fabric using a DMC cotton Perle thread. I drew circles on the fabric with a Pilot Frixion Pen. I experimented with different ways to fill and shade the circles, varying the length of the stitches.

The third image is inspired by my graffiti photographs, I used back stitch, satin stitch and seed stitch to create the different textures. I’ve always found satin stitch a bit tricky but you can use the padded satin stitch technique to give you a solid base to stitch over the top of. Remember not to use really long stitches as they can become a bit baggy although you can experiment with this too.

Always remember that embroidery is fun and there are no hard and fast rules, experiment with different ideas. You can make notes in a stitch journal about the different techniques you’ve tried so you can replicate the stitches.