Hand Embroidery starts simply with a few essential stitches, one of those being the running stitch. A running stitch is what most people new to sewing learn on their first day. It is acceptable on its own, but excitingly, it acts as a foundation for many other stitches. It is a place holder to weave in and out of for those stitches. You can try those weaving stitches out as you build confidence in hand embroidery.
Running Stitch
To begin a running stitch, bring your needle and thread up at 1 from the wrong side of your fabric to the front. Pull all the way through until you reach your knot. Insert your needle tip into the fabric at 2 and come up at 3, a stitch length away. Pull all the way through. Continue down the line, inserting the needle down and then up to the top. You want to make the stitches and the space between as even as possible. To finish, bring the needle and thread down to the wrong side and tie a knot to secure.
Run-along Stitch
For this particular fabric, I decided to let the running stitch act as a run-along beside some of the circles to make them into a path. I used the same stitch and thread around the other side of the circles to add some definition to the design and highlight that section of the fabric. Right now it’s just on its own, but I could always add embellishments to the stitches as I go along.
Next, we’ll learn how to do a backstitch, another foundational embroidery stitch.
Until then, keep on embroidering <3 Kate