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A Little Lesson
Tips on Using Stitch Diagrams
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When it comes to embroidery, I was self-taught, grandmother-taught, mother-taught, auntie-taught for many years. When I first picked up a cross stitch chart, I jumped to the conclusion that 1 square = 1 thread and started out stitching over one on some pretty fine linen.
Diagrams were a puzzle to me until a kind teacher got me going in the right direction at my first formal embroidery class (thank you Eileen Bennett).
I thought some other stitchers might be facing the same dilemma, so I made a page of commonsense tips about stitch diagrams.
Some diagrams are hand drawn by designers, some use arrows and numbers alone, but many of us now use computer programs that allow us to show the fabric threads, and the stitching threads as well.
Stitch diagrams are meant to show you where to bring your needle up, where to push it down and what direction your stitch should be going. It is as simple as that.
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COMPLEX STITCHES
Often complex stitches present a problem for diagrams. They may have overlapping stitches and numbers would be obscured if placed on both ends of a stitch.
In this instance diagrams often only indicate the beginning (or bringing up of the needle) of a stitch with a number and the direction of the stitch with an arrow as in the eyelet stitch diagram above.
Diagrams usually make sense if we carefully follow the path indicated by the designer or graphics specialist who created the instructions.
Occasionally mistakes are made and then you need to contact the designer or publisher or get out your ever handy favorite book of stitches to figure it out.
Most designers welcome hearing about corrections
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Many diagrams will have arrows to show the direction of the stitch and numbers to show where your needle should come up and go down. This diagram shows only the stitches on the front of your stitching and it tells you to bring your needle up on 5, count over two threads to the right and take your needle down on 6 -- then count over three threads to the right bringing your needle up on 7, count over two threads and take your needle down on 8.
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Sometimes diagrams tell you what happens to your threads when they are on the backside of your fabric.
This is a diagram of a pulled stitch that shows the thread on the backside of the fabric in a shaded color and with the stitches unnumbered.
In complex stitches, it sometimes helps to have a feeling for what is happening "on the other side".
Again, the stitches you will be making on the front of the fabric are numbered and the direction of the stitches indicated with an arrow. In this instance, the needle is brought up on all the odd numbers and taken down on the even numbers.
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Text and graphics Copyright 2000-2006
Linn R. Skinner
All rights reserved
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Skinner Sisters
1929 Halls Mill Road
Unionville, TN 37180
USA
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