Lickity split stitch - beginning to embroider

It is confession time. I procrastinated too much. I was so close to the deadline that I knew blogging as I went was out of the question, so I took photos and decided the rest of these entries would be in past tense, written after the project was completed. That day has come and gone, and now it’s time for me to go back and write about what I did.

Last we heard, I had decorated the pleather and appliquéd it to the front of the cover. It was time to dive into the meat of the project - the hand embroidery. So, what do you do when you want to color in your thread picture? It’s a lot like doing a coloring book - you put your outline down and then you fill it in.

The Outlining Process

The standard outline process in crewel work is usually the split stitch. It’s not a stitch people do for decorative purposes, generally. It’s a lot like a back stitch, but instead of bringing your needle up to the immediate side of the previous stitch, you actually pierce the previous stitch. Here is a link to a photo diagram of a split stitch. Why outline in split stitch? Why not use running stitch or back stitch, both of which are more regularly taught? Well, running stitch leaves gaps between the stitches. The back stitch changes thickness where one stitch overlaps the next. The outline stitch in crewel is your guideline so that the edges of the embroidered shape stay crisp. If there are gaps (as with running stitch) the shape is likely to come out ragged. If there is a change in thickness or a stair step effect (back stitch) the edge of your shape will also be ragged. When you fill in areas for crewel work, you actually extend the fill in stitches over the outline stitch so that the filling stitch almost wraps around the outline before diving back down through the fabric to the back-side. Split stitch gives a very consistent width of line for an outline, and there is no stair stepping effect regardless of how tightly you turn the line.

The Filling Process

In regular embroidery there are lots of filling stitches to choose from. In crewel there are as well, but there’s a marked preference for a long and short satin stitch. This is because crewel is traditionally done with wool, and the fuzzy nature of wool allows colors to blend in an almost painterly way when using the long and short satin stitch.

Long and short stitch is a bit of a misnomer, although it’s a good description of the first line of stitches. Here is a link that explains long and short stitch very nicely.

My Project

I decided to tackle the daisy first. I had used a daisy design from Crewel & Surface Embroidery: Inspirational Floral Designs as the basis for my daisy, and I liked their color scheme from that book. As a result I based my thread purchases on those recommended in that book. It’s been years since I did crewelwork, so I wanted a little handholding at the beginning before I tackled the parts of the project I had generated de novo.

Unfortunately the only photo I took of the leaves in progress was with my cell phone camera, and the highlights are blown out a bit. But in this photo you can see that I’ve completed one and a half leaves, I’ve started a row of long and short stitch on the other half and the 3rd leaf is outlined in split stitch.