Thursday, April 29, 2010

100 Stitches - the fly stitch

Doesn't this little red stitch make a nice strawberry seed?
This is the fly stitch! I had posted a picture of my strawberry tea towel both here on the blog and on my Flickr stream. I described how I had "made up" a stitch to use for the strawberry seeds. Yesterday, I got a sweet note from My1stBambina telling me that she thought the stitch looked like the fly stitch. I looked the stitch up in 100 Stitches and she was right! So I decided to make the fly stitch the latest stitch on the 100 Stitches list. Thank you My1stBambina! For the how-to pictures, I am using six strands of dmc #907 floss and a #24 chenille needle. I am stitching on 100% cotton quilting weight fabric.

According to 100 Stitches, this stitch may be worked singly or in horizontal or vertical rows. I am just demonstrating single stitches. First, come up through your fabric for the top left of the stitch
Now take your needle back down through the fabric a little to the right of where your needle first emerged:
Pull the floss partially through
Now bring your needle up through the fabric below and in the center, making sure the floss is under the needle:
Pull all the way through light and loose, not tight - this will form the stitch.
Now put your needle back down through the fabric directly under the stitch to anchor it in place.
Now you are free to move to another area and make another fly stitch!

3 comments:

My 1st Bambina ! said...

I'm loving the Strawberries pattern ! My little one and I had a little stitchalong using one of the strawberries in your pattern :-)... will blog about it soon. I used the fly stitch for my tiny seeds after seeing how perfect they looked on the ones you stitched ;-) so thanks sooo much for the idea/suggestion !

Kim said...

Thank you! I am so glad you identified that stitch! And - SO happy to hear that you are having fun with the strawberries pattern - stitching along with your mom would be the best way to learn embroidery and make some wonderful memories!

MagnoliaWhisper said...

Thanks so much I love this stitch. I just finished a Sally Strawberry vintage pattern this would of been great on! Too bad, I didn't find your blog sooner!