Stitching

Alison M asked me at Club CK about stitching. I thought I should post about it, since stitching has been a part of my life long before scrapbooking.

I started cross-stitching when I was in 4th grade (might have been 3rd--I lived in the Azores at the time). I did a few projects, then picked it up again in high school. I'm ambitious, so I jumped immediately into super-hard patterns as well as stitching on uneven fabrics like linen, and I've been there ever since.

Like scrapbooking, I'm a fast stitcher. This is probably due to my personality--I'm a finisher, so I derive satisfaction from finishing projects--so I do my best to finish them as quickly as I can! Still, I love stitching, and I don't do it much anymore--so I love adding stitching to my layouts.
This has been made all the easier since Bazzill came out with their stitching templates. Archiver's carries them, and I own four: Flourishes, 8x8 circles, Granny Stitches, and Silly Stitches. I use Flourishes the most. (If you are interested, go to scrapbook.com to see these and other templates.) To stitch, I tend to use either DMC (3 strands), Karen Foster's Scrapper's Floss, or Stampin' Up!'s Linen Thread.

I mostly do either a running stitch or a backstitch. I've done others. Here's a LO with lazy daisy stitches:

And here's a recent one where I used cross-stitches:

I want to do more, but truthfully, embroidery stitches are delicate, and my dudes aren't delicate. Here's a link to various types of stitches: Embroidery Stitches Sampler To secure the threads on the back, I either snake the thread underneath my stitches on the back of the layout or I use tape to secure the thread. Here's a LO using this week's Color Room color combo where I used running stitches:


And here's the back where you can see how I secured the thread:


I should mention, the first time I stitched, I ripped the heck out of the paper. The key? Put the holes far enough apart so you don't mush through the paper.