BLOG: Embroidery Tutorials

Satin stitch is one of my favorite fill stitches for small areas. It has a smooth (yes, satiny) surface and it’s a very effective way to make small areas pop. I like it when the satin stitched area is slightly raised above the surface of the fabric, and I’ll show you how to achieve that effect. It’s a nifty trick that also makes your stitching easier. I like that kind of trick!

See how easy? Satin stitch isn’t hard – it’s just slow. 🙂

Technically, this is called padded satin stitch. I show it with a ring of split stitch around the edge of the shape. There’s a tutorial showing how to split stitch here.

If you’re filling a larger area, or just want to pad the entire shape, you can use split stitch as a fill stitch to completely fill the area before sating stitching over it.

Another option (which I occasionally use for doll or softie eyes) is to cut the shape out of felt (in a color to match the thread) and then satin stitch over the felt as the padding.

Want the effect you see in that heart in the top photo? After satin stitching the heart, I outlined the shape with chain stitch. Easy peasy and super fancy.

You can find that heart embroidery pattern here.

Here are my lessons for the four most basic embroidery stitches I recommend for beginners.

• How to Backstitch
• How to Stitch a Lazy Daisy (or Detached Chain Stitch)
• How to Stitch a French Knot
• How to Satin Stitch

Return to the Learn to Embroider main Table of Contents.

Move on to the lessons teaching other options for outline stitches.

Oooh la la! French knots – so very fancy – and so very frustrating. When you don’t know the trick to them, that is.

For years I had a love/hate relationship with them. I loved the effect – there’s nothing quite like it for teeny polkadots and nubbly texture. But I hated their unpredictability. Sometimes they worked, but most of the time they didn’t. Every time I stitched one I held my breath to see if it would hold. If it did, I did a little happy dance. If it didn’t. . . well, let’s just say there was swearing while I picked out the bad stitch and rethreaded my needle.

For a long time I thought it was just a French knot thing. They have a reputation for being tricky. But then one day I had an epiphany. I realized the problem wasn’t the French knot – it was me. I blame it on my inability to read those cryptic stitch diagrams. You know – the ones with NO ACCOMPANYING TEXT to tell you about things to be careful of/look out for. All this time I simply had my needle pointed the wrong way during the thread-wrapping part of the knot. That’s it! Once I figured it out I was set and I haven’t had a failed French knot since.

Right now some of you are probably laughing at me because you’ve been successfully doing French knots since you were a kid. But I guarantee that some of you have a certain light in your eyes and you’re staring at the screen thinking, “Is it really that simple? Is that really what I’ve been doing wrong all this time?” And you’re itching to grab a hoop and see if it really works. I know this because that’s been the response in every class I’ve ever taught. Go grab your hoop, my friends. Watch the video. You’ll see. And you will LOVE French knots. There’s nothing else quite like them.

Want some practice?

There are a few French knots decorating this pretty bird.

Click here for that free embroidery pattern.

And here’s a totally insane practice project.

Yep – those flowers pants are all French knots. She’s from the Misfits monster embroidery pattern.

Here are my lessons for the four most basic embroidery stitches I recommend for beginners.

• How to Backstitch
• How to Stitch a Lazy Daisy (or Detached Chain Stitch)
• How to Stitch a French Knot
• How to Satin Stitch

Return to the Learn to Embroider main Table of Contents.

Move on to the lessons teaching other options for outline stitches.

Today I’ll show you how to stitch a lazy daisy – perfect for making teardrop shapes. Of course they make terrific daisies – like in this robot pattern.

I also used a single lazy daisy stitch for the glowing red light at the tip of his antenna. 🙂

I also used lots of them in the scales and gills of the carp in this koi banner.

Of course, since they make great leaves I used lots of lazy daisy stitches on the houseplants page of my book How to Embroider Almost Everything.

I love that plant in the smiling flowerpot. Alas, I’m only good with embroidered plants. All the real ones in my house die. 🙁

You’ll see lazy daisy is very similar to the chain stitch that works great for lovely textured lines. Lazy daisy is also called detached chain stitch – so that makes perfect sense!

The video has a bonus lesson on how to pull out those pesky loops that sometimes form on the surface of your fabric while you stitch!! I’ve been waiting for that to happen while I was filming and it finally did. 🙂

Want to practice your lazy daisy stitches? This tree pattern has a ton of them!

Each leaf is a lazy daisy stitch. Each firefly is a fly stitch. And I stitched both using glow in the dark thread, so the whole tree glows. Fun!

Here are my lessons for the four most basic embroidery stitches I recommend for beginners.

• How to Backstitch
• How to Stitch a Lazy Daisy (or Detached Chain Stitch)
• How to Stitch a French Knot
• How to Satin Stitch

Return to the Learn to Embroider main Table of Contents.

Move on to the lessons teaching other options for outline stitches.

This is the last of the outline stitches we’ll be doing for a little while – and it’s definitely the fanciest so far.

Chain stitch is one of my favorite hand embroidery outline stitches, but it’s not the first one I teach.

I generally start with running stitch because that’s the easiest stitch there is. (This video shows how to do running stitch.)

Then I move on to back stitch. That’s the most versatile outline stitch and also really easy. Here’s the video showing how to back stitch.

Then I usually teach split stitch. It’s almost as easy as back stitch, and has a nice texture – almost as nice as chain stitch. Here’s the video showing how to split stitch.

Then I finally teach how to chain stitch. So here’s the video!

I just adore this stitch!

I especially like to use chain stitch for cursive letters – you can see that in this alphabet embroidery pattern.

I also like to use it for really lovely decorative lines, like on this felt Easter Egg coaster found in this pattern.

Here’s a super close up showing how I used chain stitch to outline a satin stitched heart from this pattern.

Want to fancy it up even more?

Here’s a stitch called backstitched chain stitch. So very fancy!

There’s a video here showing how to do it.

Here are all my lessons for outline embroidery stitches.

• running stitch
• back stitch
• split stitch
• stem stitch
• chain stitch
• threaded stitches
• whipped stitches
• backstitched chain stitch
• couching
• couching with satin stitch

Return to the Learn to Embroider main Table of Contents.

Move on to the lessons teaching fill stitches.

Want to learn how to embroider eyes the way I do it?

I have a particular way I make eyes when I draw, and when I translated those drawings into embroideries I had a hard time choosing a stitch that gave me just the effect I wanted.

A French knot was too round.

A simple straight stitch was, well, too straight. And too flat.

Padded satin stitch is great for larger eyes, but I needed something that would work for small faces and eyes.

I tried a lot of different stitches, and combinations of stitches until I finally hit on something that was just right. If I had to give it a name, I guess I’d call it a padded straight stitch?

So now I’m going to show you how to embroider eyes using this special stitch. I use this for all of my doll and softie faces, as well as any other small faces I stitch.

Want to practice stitching eyes? Try this Monster Mash embroidery pattern full of monster faces.

Lots of eyes to embroider in there!

The Under the Sea pattern is also full of eyes for you to embroider.

Happy stitching!

Here are all my lessons for other stitches.

• lazy daisy
• French knot
• embroidering eyes
• pistil stitch
• cross stitch
• fly stitch
• U-stitch

Return to the Learn to Embroider main Table of Contents.

Move on to the lessons about finishing your work.

The split stitch is a lovely outline stitch. It’s raised a bit from the surface of the fabric, and it has a lovely, almost-braided look to it. It also forms a more continuous line – unlike the backstitch where you can see the individual stitches.

Here’s how to split stitch.

See how easy it is?

Split stitch is great for outlines where I want a little texture – but it has other uses too. I almost always use it to outline the edge of a space I plan to cover with satin stitch. It helps to give your satin stitching a sharp, raised edge.

You can also use split stitch as a fill stitch, filling in large areas with that braided texture. I used that a lot in this free Feast embroidery pattern.

You can see split stitch used as a fill stitch in the sun and the clouds, and regular split stitch used for the lettering.

Here are all my lessons for outline embroidery stitches.

• running stitch
• back stitch
• split stitch
• stem stitch
• chain stitch
• threaded stitches
• whipped stitches
• backstitched chain stitch
• couching
• couching with satin stitch

Return to the Learn to Embroider main Table of Contents.

Move on to the lessons teaching fill stitches.

If you want to do hand embroidery, you really need to know how to backstitch.

The backstitch is probably THE most common outline stitch. It gives a nice, smooth, continuous line. If you’re going to be stitching tight curves make sure to use a shortish stitch length. Otherwise, just use a stitch length you’re comfortable with and try to stay consistent.

Ready to learn it? It’s easy.

Now that you’ve seen how to backstitch, you’ll want to practice!

Here’s a free cat embroidery pattern, stitched entirely with backstitch.

And here’s a free butterfly embroidery pattern that uses backstitch and a tiny bit of running stitch for the swoopy flight path..

It’s so versatile! Use it any time a pattern calls for a simple line.

Once you know the basics of how to backstitch, you can fancy it up by adding a second thread in a contrasting color. Learn how to stitch a threaded backstitch here, and a whipped backstitch here.

Here are my lessons for the four most basic embroidery stitches I recommend for beginners.

• How to Backstitch
• How to Stitch a Lazy Daisy (or Detached Chain Stitch)
• How to Stitch a French Knot
• How to Satin Stitch

Return to the Learn to Embroider main Table of Contents.

Move on to the lessons teaching other options for outline stitches.

There are a lot of outline stitches you can use for different effects when you’re embroidering by hand – the running stitch is the easiest.

It’s a great stitch to start with – the first one I teach to beginning stitchers.

So watch the video and get stitching!

Remember – the “correct” way to do running stitch is where the length of your stitches is equal to the length of the space between the stitches. But that’s not the only way to do it!

I prefer to have more stitch and less space. Every once in a while, depending on the effect I’m going for – maybe raindrops? – I might want to have spaces longer than my stitches. It’s totally up to you!

If you want to practice your running stitch, here’s a free pattern to try. It uses just that one stitch!

Get the Raining Rainbows embroidery pattern here.

You can use the running stitch for more than embroidery. It’s the stitch I use for all my Big Stitch Quilting! Here’s a little peek at a project.

If you look closely you can see that the space between my stitches is WAY smaller than the stitches themselves.

If you want to practice the Big Stitch use of running stitches, here’s a free project to try.

Click here to go to the Big Stitch Polkadot Coasters pattern.

Here are all my lessons for outline embroidery stitches.

• running stitch
• back stitch
• split stitch
• stem stitch
• chain stitch
• threaded stitches
• whipped stitches
• backstitched chain stitch
• couching
• couching with satin stitch

Return to the Learn to Embroider main Table of Contents.

Move on to the lessons teaching fill stitches.

In this video I show you three different ways to transfer embroidery patterns – including super tricky fabrics like black velvet.

I mention a couple of products in this video. One is Sulky Solvy. The other is an iron-on transfer pen or pencil. Both are from Sulky and both work really well. But. . .

Update – Since I recorded this video I’ve discovered a new product that is so amazingly awesome it gets its own video. You MUST watch it. It’s also from Sulky and it’s called Sulky Sticky Fabri-solvy. I call it The Magical Embroidery Stuff. 🙂 It’s pure magic! I use it now every time I transfer embroidery patterns. It works for regular fabric, for knit fabric, for dark fabric, and even for napped fabric like velvet or terrycloth. It’s fabulous!

Here are all my posts about working with patterns.

Pattern Sources

• My book – How to Embroider Almost Everything – has over 500 motifs
• My digital pattern shop
• My free patterns
• How to Work with Digital Patterns
• How to Work with Digital Patterns If You Don’t Have a Printer

How to Resize a Pattern

• How to Transfer and Stabilize an Embroidery Pattern (my preferred method)
• How to Transfer an Embroidery Pattern (other methods)
• How to Enlarge or Reduce Digital Patterns
• How to Use a Tiny Embroidery Pattern to Stitch a T-shirt

Return to the Learn to Embroider main Table of Contents.

Move on to the posts about knots. Yes – a whole section about knots. 🙂