Welcome to the ‘Escape to Africa’ Stitch A Long
This Stitch A Long is taking place for 12 weeks on the Stitchdoodles blog – Starting Wednesday 31st May 2023 and finishing on Wednesday 16th August 2023.
Each Wednesday during the SAL – a new tutorial will be published on the blog with all the information you need to complete a part of the Escape to Africa Pattern.
If you are not familiar with a Stitchdoodles SAL and this is all new to you and you would like to join in, please go to this page to get all the information.
Do you need help with any of the stitches?
A Stitch A Long doesn’t provide you with the step by step instructions for the stitches themselves – it is a tutorial on how to stitch the pattern design – colours, techniques and stitches used etc. I will link to a ‘How to’ for certain stitches where I can, if you need further guidance, please take a look here …
How to Teach Yourself Hand Embroidery Stitches
Time to get stitching…
Here’s the blocks we will be stitching for week 1…
For the Toucan/Tree, you will need the following colours…
#632, #905, #907, #310, #946, #312, #3866
Use 2 strands throughout unless stated otherwise.
Stitching the Tree:
#632: Back stitch up the tree trunk to fill.
#905: Stitch French Knots to fill the lower 2 smaller bushes on the tree. I made the knots slightly larger by wrapping 3 times around the needle.
Next, stitch the top section of the tree. To create a variegated effect I used 1 strand each of 2 different greens…
#905 / 1 strand and #907 / 1 strand: Put both strands in the needle together and then stitch French Knots same as you did to fill the lower sections of the tree.
Stitching the Toucan:
#310: Split stitch the body, across the top of the head and the section between the face and the beak.
#3866: Satin Stitch the white of the body as well as the eye circle over the top of the eye pupil. This detail will be added in.
#946: Split stitch the main beak section
In the same colour but with just 1 strand, split stitch around the white of the eye.
Finishing your Toucan…
The eye: make sure your stitches are tiny so all the colours remain visible and neat…
#312 / 1 strand: Tiny back stitch the circle edge
#310 / 1 strand: Tiny stitch for the pupil
The Beak: #310: Satin stitch the tip shape
Finally, the dividing line between the black and the white on the body might be a bit untidy, #310: split stitch up the line to give it a more neater look.
The very first block of the SAL is complete!
To finish this week, we are just going to stitch the 2 small blocks above this one. They are nice and simple and won’t take much time…
This Flower is stitched entirely in Satin stitch in the colours shown. It is easier to satin stitch diagonally on thin shapes like this – it looks neater and the smaller tips are achieved much more easily.
Note: The yellow is #725 (not #743) for both flowers.
For this flower, using the colours shown, Satin stitch the green leaves and yellow petals, back stitch the stem up the middle. To finish, Chain stitch the blue petals in the centre top.
Week 1 is complete…
… and it certainly was a colourful one – hope you enjoyed your first Escape to Africa!
Make sure you show off your gorgeous stitching in the Happy Stitching FB Group or on Instagram with #stitchdoodlesembroidery.
If you need help along the way just ask in the FB group as there are lots of lovely people stitching along with you who can offer lots of advice and support if needed.
Week 2 is on the blog Wednesday 7th June… See you then!
Happy Stitching!
