Honeycomb Tutorial Time: Snazzy Stem Stitch

Time to embroider your second patch! 

I did gave a sneaky heads up of what the next stitch we will tackle in my recent  newsletter, but in case you didn't get it we will be doing Stem Stitch..or as I like to call it Snazzy Stem. 

For those new to Honeycomb Embroidery Tutorial series, I recommend taking a look at the first part, which goes into more detail on the equipment needed and picking your colour palette. Click here to take a look.

So let's crack on....

You will need:

• Embroidery hoop
• Scissors 
• A sharp needle
• Select three stranded cotton colours, from your palette
• A piece of calico that fits your hoop
• Sharp HB pencil
• Machine thread 
• Print out the template, click here.

Now for the stitching...

• For those interested I picked the following colours from my palette; brown (DMC 938), pink (DMC 29) and green (907). 
• Draw the design onto your fabric, don't draw the outline of the shape. Keep the template for later use.
• Order of stitching and direction: 

• Chose a colour to work with first, cut a length of thread and split it so you work with two strands. Start your thread off on the line, were indicated in the previous drawing, either secure your thread with a knot, or two tiny stab stitches on the line and cut away the knot.
• Now your ready to start the stem stitch: 

Come up at A. and go down at B, I find it easier and neater not to pull the thread all the way through, instead keep a bit of a loop on the right, and bring your needle up half way between A and B, as shown on point C, then pull the thread all the way through. To carry on, take your needle down half a stitch length again beyond point B. Repeat.

Keep your loop to the right! 

If its on the left, then it's outline stitch, which isn't as snazzy...

• Work the stem stitch to the end of the line, take the thread to the back and weave the thread through the back of the stitches till your happy the thread is secure and snip off the tail. 

• Hot Tip: Keep an eye on the state of your thread, it will get fluffy and messy quickly, you can use thread conditioner but just keep your thread lengths short and change often. When you change your thread, this is how you carry on the stitch without making it look messy. Secure your thread as if you were starting from the beginning of the line, bring your needle up on the right of the stem stitch line, just at the end of the second to last stitch. Then slide your needle under the last stitch and pull through thread, now carry on as normal. 

• For the second line, we are going to make it a little snazzier, your going to work it in three threads, and one of each thread colour you've selected. It will look like a crazy barber shop pole. Start the wavy line as before and carry onto the end.

Stitching over a line is easy, almost pretend the other line isn't there and carry on your way. If you need to stitch through it, in order to keep your stitch lengths the same, then just do it, it won't mess up the line below.

• The final line is worked in two strands of one colour. As you work towards the loop, shorten the length of the stitch by a fraction to make the stitching tighter.

• The circles....are also in stem stitch, a little challenge for you to attempt. The circles look tricky but it just comes down to making small stitches like you did for the loop. To close up the circle neatly, by angling your needle under the first stitch.  

Showing how to join up the circle

Finishing Off

You have a couple of options for finishing off this hive piece, you can do the reverse applique as shown in Eyelet Polka, or you can do a version of English Paper Piecing, which is a quilting technique. 

• Grab your template you printed out earlier, and cut out the hexagon shape.
• Take your fabric out of the hoop, turn to the back. The lines on the cut out shape can be used to match up with the stitching on the fabric, simply holding both up to a window or using a lightbox will allow you to do this. Then pin the paper to the fabric to keep it in place, mind your stitching.
• Trim back the fabric to about two centimetres from the edge of the template edge. Thread up a needle with machine thread, knot one end. The basics of English Paper Piecing is simply neatly fold the fabric, one side at a time around the paper template  and stitching through the folds to keep it in place. 
• As shown below, fold one side over top edge (diag. 2), sew through the layers (from back to front), turn the shape and fold the fabric over, sew through the corner this time going from the front to the back. The stitches should be nice and long, and you'll have three on the back and three on the front (diag. 4).

• Now you can leave it this point with the paper within the template, and when you make more of the tutorial pieces you can sew them together as if you were making a quilt. Or if you want to use your piece to sew directly onto something now, then you can very lightly press the edges of the piece with an iron to keep the hexagon shape, avoiding putting pressure on the stitches. Remove the machine thread and pop out the paper template, you will find you have nice crisp lines from the folding earlier. To make it easier for you to then apply to something I would just do a loose running stitch, as shown below, attach it to what you want it to with small stab stitches around the edge. Then remove your machine thread again. 

Do let me know if you have any questions, or queries. Leave a comment or nip over to the Flickr group. 

Honeycomb Embroidery Tutorials - Welcome

Welcome to the first in a series of mini embroidery tutorials, in which I will show you how to do some of my favourite embroidery stitches. I hope they will then become yours too. I’ve made them to be enjoyable as possible so that by the end of the year, you will have several stitches under your embroidered belt.

The designs have been made so that even if you only do one, you’re not left with yet another sample that floats about your house, but rather a piece of embroidery that can be done in an afternoon, if that, and immediately applied to something, like a quilt or whatever you fancy. 

One thing I also don't want to do is overwhelm you with the tutorials, so I am splitting everything out over several blog posts. The first will be looking at materials and colours, then the stitching, and finally the finishing off. There is nothing worse and a huge long blog post to scroll through. I also want you to read through the blog posts, gather what you need and then work on it when your ready to do it.

So grab yourself a cuppa, a pen and a notebook. 

Ready? Then let's begin.

For your first tutorial your going to looking at eyelets:

The project needed a name so it will forever be called 'Eyelet Polka', but as I've mentioned before your not going to be starting the stitching yet, I am going to get you picking your colours and your equipment. 

So let's begin with the first part, which is picking your colour palette!

In total you need to pick eight colours, they have to be colours that make you smile/cheer you up (strict order here folks). You won’t be working with all eight colours every tutorial, on average you’ll only work with three colours at any one time. So the colours you pick should ideally compliment one another. You should have a look at Wild Olive for some great colour combinations.

Yummy

I’ve used for my palette, DMC stranded cottons in the following colours: 

• 598
• 955
• 3805
• 725
• 899
• 907
• 926
• 938

Once you have selected your colours, I’d love to see them so why not upload them to my flickr group page - I like to be nosey! Join the Craft Hive.

Now with the pretty things sorted, you need to gather other materials and equipment:

FABRIC: I’ll be using a light weight calico throughout the tutorials, it’s nice to work on and it’s cheap, and an extremely underrated fabric. At times you may need additional fabric but I will indicate with each tutorial what you will need.

TEMPLATES/PATTERNS: Will be downloadable at the start of each stitching tutorial

EQUIPMENT:

• 6” wooden ring frame – I use a table mounted ring frame [like this one] they really are a useful piece of equipment and mean you can work hands free, but by all means use whatever you have to hand.
• Sharp embroidery scissors – if you don’t have any, I really recommend that it’s time you treated yourself to a pair, they really are invaluable. [Recommend Kia scissors]
• Sharp needles
• Stiletto / very thick tapestry needle
• Sharpened HB pencil
• Pins

At this point, I should add if you do use a wooden ring frame, then I would recommend that if you haven’t already do so is to wrap the rings with either cotton tape or strips of calico fabric. Check out my handy dandy tutorial on prepping a ring frame. Click me.

PART 2 - The Stitching
PART 3 - How to finish

Any point you have any questions, please feel free to leave me a comment.