Several years back, we did a webinar entitled 8 Hand Embroidery Stitches to Teach Your Girls. When I came across the audio and class in my files, I was so encouraged, yet again, on the goodness of teaching hand embroidery as a skill for our girls.
8 Hand Embroidery Stitches to Teach Your Girls
At what age should I start teaching hand embroidery?
I started teaching my youngest daughter to stitch simple shapes at the age of 4. Every girl is going to be different, so don’t be discouraged if they aren’t quite ready to start that early. A great idea to get them interested and familiar with a needle are lacing cards. You can find a variety of these sewing cards online to help develop fine motor skills.
How can you teach beginners to space hand embroidery stitches evenly?
Tiger Tape is the best tool to guide and neaten hand embroidery stitches in young beginners. They simply start and end where the lines are. Evenly spaced stitches are easily accomplished and the beginner can concentrate on the formation of the stitch.
Missouri Quilt Company sells Tiger Tape at a great price! This is the type I used, and it’s extremely helpful for hand embroidery and quilting.
In the audio and PDF guide, we go over 8 hand embroidery stitches: the Colonial Knot, Running Stitch, Buttonhole Stitch, Chain Stitch, Stem Stitch, Feather Stitch, French Knot, and the Herringbone Stitch. These are pretty basic and work well to embellish or use on any design.
The colonial knot is a wonderful stitch used in Candlewicking, a vintage type of hand embroidery. Much stronger than a French Knot.
I use running stitch for borders and mostly hand quilting. Beautiful!
I use the buttonhole stitch for decorative edging.
Chain stitches make lovely flowers!
A stem stitch is using for outlining and lettering.
The feather stitch is a multipurpose decorative stitch.
The french knot is a delicate looking knot, used a lot in heirloom embroidery for dresses, flowers, and borders.
The herringbone stitch can be used in block designs, borders, it is also a multipurpose stitch.
Included in the talk and guide is an easy way for your beginning embroiderers to practice and make a notebook to refer to in stitches. This is a great way to see improvement in stitches and make a lovely keepsake at the same time.
I give some ideas on making a stitch notebook for hand embroidery reference and practice.
Have fun creating!