Fancy Herringbone Stitch

Fancy Herringbone Stitch is a fun and easy to work variety of Herringbone, It is good to use as border and crazy quilters love it as it works up like a braid. When lacing this stitch use a tapestry needle so that you avoid splitting the thread on the foundation row.

How to work Fancy Herringbone Stitch

Start by working a line of herringbone stitch. If you need a bit of reminder on how to work Herringbone stitch you will find a tutorial here

Tie each crossed bar top and bottom with a small upright cross stitch. Work the bottom of the cross vertically and top of the cross horizontally. No not work the cross stitches too tightly as you will be lacing through these stitches and you need to leave a little slack to be able to do this.

Work the lacing from left to right. Bring your lacing thread out at the bottom left hand corner of the line of stitches. With your needle point upward take it under the top horizontal bar of the first cross stitch.

 

Move to the next cross on the bottom line of the herringbone stitches. With your needle pointing downward thread it under the horizontal bar of the cross stitch.

Take your needle back to the first cross and pass it under the cross stitch again so that you have a complete loop as illustrated.

Move to the top line of the cross stitches that are tying the herringbone. Choose the second cross along as illustrated and with your needle pointed upward, pass your needle under the bar.

Move to the left and with your needle pointed downward pass your needle under the cross bar of the stitch as illustrated.

Move the bottom of the line and repeat this lacing pattern to the end of the line.

Fancy Herringbone Stitch is a decorative stitch. It forms a strong but pretty line. It is also fun to work in different threads and you can lace this stitch using many novelty threads.
I hope you enjoy it and you can use it in you surface embroidery.

Thread Twisties!

Experimenting with different threads can be expensive, as you would normally have to buy a whole skein of each type of thread. So I have made up my thread twisties which are a combination of different threads to use in creative hand embroidery. These enable you to try out stitching with something other than stranded cotton. For the price of just a few skeins, you can experiment with a bundle of threads of luscious colours and many different textures.

These are creative embroiders threads. With them, I hope to encourage you to experiment. Each Twistie is a thread bundle containing silk, cotton, rayon and wool. Threads range from extra fine (the same thickness as 1 strand of embroidery floss) to chunky couchable textured yarns. All threads have a soft and manageable drape so that twisting them around a needle makes experimental hand embroidery an interesting journey rather than a battle.  Many are hand dyed by me. All are threads I use. You may find a similar thread twist but no two are identical.

You will find my thread twisties in the Pintangle shop here.