I was pondering the horrendous mess that is the back of my stitching, and grumbling about having to flip my work over to start and finish threads so often with this mess, when I recalled some articles I had read over at Needle'nthread and decided to give them a try. Then remembered something about pinhead stitches, googled it and found this. I decided to give these techniques a whirl and see how it went.
Welp, I think they are right fine! In the pic above, see the little black dash, kind of middle-right? That's Mary Corbett's method of taking little back stitches, and I used it to end my black thread. I placed them right in the center threads of where I'll be stitching a line of straight black cross stitches. I used it elsewhere in the black gate, and you can't even see it. The pinhead stitches I used extensively in the trellis to the left. I discovered that I can't just ham fist my way through them, particularly when ending a thread because it will deform the cross under which they are stitched. Finesse. Finesse is the way to go. For the ray stitches and eyelets I used a combo of the tacking stitches to start and pinhead to finish under the nearest cross stitch. These turned out fine because they are stitched with 1 strand. I wouldn't try it with 2 strands. Also, rather than leaving a tail at the back when starting the pinhead I brought the thread back up in the middle and snipped it off. No more flipping the work! Woot! And that section of stitching is far more tidy than I've ever seen on my work before. It's fun to try new things!
The holes up there in the fabric were the result of me being silly with my laying tool, which has proven to be ridiculously handy for widening holes for the eyelets.
No comments:
Post a Comment