Stitches

I have a rose transfer pattern for hand embroidery. Stitches to fill petals?

Public Comments

1. Satin stitch is long stitches close together from edge to edge across the design. This would work and you could put veins down the leaves by working in sections. You then use a darker colour to stem stitch along the joins of each section. It looks realistic. I don't remember the name for it, but there's also a staggered satin stitch. One stitch is long, beside it is a shorter stitch, then another long one and so on. Alternatively, you could fill the area with little French dots or cross hatching - lines of running stitches that intersect in a check type pattern. You could use both cross hatching and dots as it's all the rage now and gives your work a Jacobean look. Here's a link to a site for machine embroidering and the petals are only half done with little running stitches. You could copy that idea if you need it to be quick. Take a look around the site as there are some great ideas even if you're not using a machine. http://www.hatchedinafrica.com/singledesigns.html If you are a beginner, this site is quite good with clear diagrams. http://www.craftown.com/instruction/embroidery.htm This site, below, has videos that you can download too. Mary also talks about some of the mechanics of stitching that will make it easier to do. I do not have any affiliation with this site, but I have learnt Mary Corbett's resources. http://www.needlenthread.com/2006/10/video-library-of-hand-embroidery.html It's best to look around to get a few different ideas and there's heaps of places if you search for hand or machine embroidery designs you'll get heaps. Have fun! Capri-xau.
2. I have done some using long and short stitches. These are just like the crewel long and short, but done with regular embroidery floss. Use outline stitch around the perimeter of each petal. Or I have just done a sort of button hole stitch around the edge of each petal using longer or shorter down stitches. This highlights just the edges of each petal but doesn't fill the entire petal. Depending on the look you want, you can do this easily.