Fern Stitch Project - Daniel - Koala Stitching Studio

Here is my homage to Diver Dan - a scuba diver looking at the submarine porthole through seaweed stitched from Fern Stitch. I really love this idea.

It was quick and easy using some of our previous stitches such as Chain Stitch, Stem Stitch and Whip Stitch. And you can add extras to your own design such as fish, shells or bubbles.

The pattern is available from our Resources page in this website for free. As you can see on the right, the pattern was traced onto Sticky Water Soluble Paper.

My method for cutting out the shape of the yellow fabric (sand) was quite cumbersome. In hindsight I would made the circle in the pattern from a bowl and trace the rim of the bowl directly onto the fabric. As a full circle is not needed, a section needs to be trimmed from the piece for the horizontal edge. And a seam allowance would need to be added for turning over the raw edges of the fabric.

This particular fabric worked especially well as it is just the right colour and texture for actual sand. It was just a remnant of left over quilting fabric which was the perfect fit for this project.

After the sand fabric was stitched in place using Whip Stitch, the Sticky Water Soluble Paper is placed onto the centre of the T shirt.

You can see that the edge of the sand fabric is not a perfect circle and and extends a bit beyond the line of the circle drawn on the paper. This inconsistency was covered over by the porthole stitching which was made from 4 rows of Chain Stitch.

The pattern itself are just lines marking the seaweed stems and the scuba diver in the background. The diver is worked first and will be partially obscured behind the seaweed.

The outline of the diver is worked in Stem Stitch whilst the fill on the body is Chain Stitch. The air tank straps were worked in a different colour to ensure they stood out from the rest of the body in Straight Stitch.

Your choice of colour for the seaweed will depend upon your personal preferences and the colour of the T shirt you use. In nature seaweed comes in purples, reds, yellow, greens and beige. I used 2 strands of DMC floss for the seaweed which has provided a good thickness for the plants.

Below you see a close up image of the porthole which I think worked very well. The colour is brassy and 4 rows of Chain Stitch around the circular outline of the pattern defines the space.

I stitched the first row of Chain Stitch with the Water Soluble Paper in place then washed it out for the remaining 3 rows. The Paper along with the quilting fabric added a lot of layers to pierce with the needle. It was much easier to stitch the pattern without the Paper.

But be careful! The Paper provides great stability on the T shirt fabric and keeps stitch tension in check. Without the Paper, make sure you don't pull on the stitches which will cause the T shirt fabric to pucker.