Stitch Book: Running Stitch Tutorial

Welcome back. I hope your enjoyed reading my first blog post last week. There will be lots more to come in the following weeks but today is the launch of a new stitch project, which I am very excited to share with you.

I thought it would be a nice idea to start a stitch book where we will learn the basic embroidery stitches. I've seen these kind of books before and thought they were a great idea and I also love how tactile they are. Each month we will learn a new embroidery stitch and hopefully by the end of the year we will have a completed fabric book full of embroidery stitches.

As I design and make hand embroidery kits I thought the stitch book would compliment the kits nicely. If you are new to embroidery then it's a good introduction but even if you're a experienced stitcher it's an enjoyable project to complete and it's good to revisit some stitches you may not have used in a while.

The first stitch tutorial is the running stitch. It's quite a simple stitch but has many uses and is very versatile.

Lets start with the running stitch tutorial...

1. Start by threading the needle with your stranded embroidery thread. It's up to you how many strands of thread you want to sew with. I have chosen all six threads for this tutorial. Tie a small knot at one end of the thread.

2. Bring the needle up through the fabric, this is your starting point.

3. Then put the needle back into the fabric where you want the stitch to end.

4. Then bring the needle back up through the fabric a short distance away from the end of the last stitch.

5. Continue this process, keeping your stitches as even and neat as possible.

You have now completed the running stitch!

Running Stitch Tips:

* Try not to pull the thread too much otherwise the fabric may pucker

* Vary the amount of thread strands used to create different effects

* Vary the length of the stitch and the gaps between each stitch for a different look

Once you are used to the running stitch try playing around with different shapes and patterns, there's so many possibilities.

Now lets start the first page of the stitch book! The stitch book is the ideal place to play around with creating patterns using the running stitch.

All you will need to start the stitch book is:

* Fabric

* Embroidery thread

* Needle

* Scissors

* Embroidery Hoop (optional)

* Heat/Air Erasable Pen (optional)

For my stitch book I choose some old cotton with a natural linen look. It will be easy to stitch onto and can easily be made into a book. You can choose any fabric you like for your stitch book, as long as it's suitable for hand embroidery. I would recommend choosing a plain fabric so it will clearly show all of your stitches. You can always applique patterned bits of fabric onto some of the pages, to add some variation, if you would like.

Lets begin...

1. I started by cutting my fabric to roughly A5 size, so once it's folded into a book it will be around A6 size.

2. I roughly drew my page layout onto paper. I then drew it onto fabric using a heat erasable pen. This step is optional. Why not go freestyle and use the needle and thread as a pen instead. The stitch pattern you create on the fabric is completely up to you. However, I do suggest stitching the word 'running stitch' on the page somewhere so you can easily identify the stitch at a later date.

* If you would like to draw onto the fabric before stitching and don't have a heat/air erasable pen, then you could use a sharp pencil and draw the lines on the fabric very faintly.

3. Now you are ready to start your running stitch page. Play with the thread colour, the length of stitch and thickness of thread and see what results you can achieve. I worked with my fabric in an embroidery hoop but this is not necessary.

4. Continue stitching the running stitch. Do as much stitching as you wish but don't feel like you need to finish the whole page in one go. You could just do a few stitches or patterns a day.

Here is my completed page. I lightly ironed the fabric to remove any lines from the heat erasable pen. It's now ready for the next stitch which I will launch next month.

I hope you enjoyed this month's stitch tutorial. Please let me know if you have any questions or anything you would like to see featured by leaving a comment below.

Hannah