As a beginner to hand sewing , I had not come across Straight Stitch before - ever! I wondered, what on earth can you do with single straight stitches to make up an embroidery pattern.
Well, as it turns out, you can do quite a lot with Straight Stitch.
In fact Straight Stitch really allows you to put the needle anywhere you need it to be, and make a stitch in any direction you need to go.
In this case, I have made an image of roses which have loose definition, using Straight Stitch. Gradients of colour are created by manipulating the stitches length and angles along the pattern lines. The stitches are neat but decidedly imperfect. This all adds to a modern, impressionistic feel.
This is a very simple design with minimal lines in a modern take on the traditional rose shape. Here, less is more, and the imagination fills in the details of a basic shape.
The design can be found for free in our Resources section. The simple lines make for an easy and quick project to upgrade a plain shirt with interest and colour.
You can see in the picture to the left, the way in which colour definition has been varied using stitch length.
Where a finer light line is required, the stitches cross the pen line at 90 degrees, with short stitches.
Where stronger definition is required, the stitches slant across the pen line at an angle and are made longer. This extra length makes the line thicker and provides greater definition to that part of the rose.
I found that having the shorter stitches spaced more widely lightened those parts of the rose. Where more definition is required, the longer stitches can be moved closer together, providing more definition.
This project was very simple and quick to complete. I used 2 strands of DMC cotton colour 304, to work the stitches. And it took a couple of evenings to complete.
The pattern was traced using my trusty Birch Erasable Fine Mark Pen Blue. This has been my go to marker pen for quite a few projects now. It is most suitable for light coloured or white fabrics.
This project was smooth sailing from start to finish. My only difficulty as you will see in the video was in tracing the pattern through the T shirt fabric. I find that the quality of T shirts and their fabrics do vary particularly if your T shirt is a well worn favourite. Here the pattern appeared through the fabric clearly when pressed against the fabric. However when not pressed firmly the details were a little lost and some touch up drawing was necessary to complete the pattern. This was done by freehand.
Watch how the project came together in our YouTube Video.
See our easy to follow video tutorial for Straight Stitch.
Find the printable template for the stitch pattern on our Resources page.
Find our photo tutorial for Straight Stitch here.
