I’ve been bogged down in recreating a Stitch Guide for a customer and it hasn’t been fun (for a myriad of technical reasons). Yet there is a silver lining…today’s stitch! I woulda bet money I had already posted this and you woulda been so rich if you had taken that bet!

The stitched sample is a sail from Rooftops, a beautiful piece by Emma Williams. It uses six plies of City Needlework Silk (black lines) and Fyre Werks (yellow lines) on 13-mesh.

This is a double-needler. I recommend preparing two separate needles with the threads. Add the base thread first (yellow line), park the needle off to the side, and cover it with the top threads (black lines). Park that needle on the side and repeat the sequence on the next horizontal column. Always complete the two steps for an entire horizontal column before you proceed to the next column of stitches.

I recommend the double needle technique for many layered stitches. Bringing a threaded needle up from below a pre-existing thread runs the risk of tangles, shredding of either or both threads, and mistakes. In this case, every hole for the threads on top (black lines) is clearly visible.

This is a great all-purpose stitch. I love to use it on roofs and floors with Elegance or Subtlety (black lines) and a contrasting color in the same thread for the yellow lines. Don’t forget to flip it 90° if that makes more sense for the architectural element. I think this could make a really interesting stitch for a Christmas tree with a lightweight metallic (yellow lines) and silk floss (black lines. It would have to be a larger tree, but I think that could be very interesting. And, as always, this will be a great application for clothing. Consider using a Very Velvet (yellow lines) covered with a silk floss (black lines) for an interesting matte on matte look.

This stitch diagram, along with all other #whimsicalwednesday and #smallspacesunday stitch diagrams, can also be found on a Pinterest board here.

Be sure to follow whimsicalstitch.com on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter.

If you like what you see on this blog, want to learn some very creative decorative stitches, and how to put them all together, whimsicalstitch.com has a book for you! Mary’s Whimsical Stitches is a contemporary how-to collection of more than 250 stitches for stitchers regardless of skill level. The book includes updated and sequenced diagrams from this blog, all-new stitches, and a chapter on the basics of needlepoint. For more information, visit here.

whimsicalstitch.com also sells Stitch Guides and Stitch Concepts for Melissa Shirley Designs, Zecca Designs, Sandra Gilmore, Purple Palm, Maggie, and Penny MacLeod, and many more. Click here to see the newest guides and click here to see the entire collection.

I hope you have the perfect spot for this stitch! Please enjoy! Have a wonderful #whimsicalwednesday!

A Note about Diagrams
I use color in diagrams to make them as clear as possible.  The primary function of different colored lines is to illustrate a stitch sequence.  For example, layering of colors demonstrates you add them in that order.  They can also provide ideas on how to integrate additional threads (one line for each color).  Or, you can use the same thread for all color lines.  That's where I encourage you to use your imagination for the space you are stitching!