Festive Forest Week 5: Hanging up the stockings!

Welcome to the ‘Festive Forest’ Stitch A Long

This Stitch A Long will take place for 12 weeks on the Stitchdoodles blog – Starting Wednesday 21st September 2022.

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 Festive 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 …

Welcome to Week 5…

This is a nice easy stitch week with lots of colour to keep you motivated.

You will need the following colours… #829, #3345, #3820, #798, #321

Use 2 strands throughout unless otherwise stated.

Let’s start with the 2 branches…

I chose to stitch each stocking in #321 red, #3345 green, #3820 yellow and repeat for the others, you can obviously totally make this your own and use the colours as you want!

Finish off your line of stockings by connecting them on the tops with #798: straight stitch so they look like they are hanging between the branches.

To stitch the Bird…

Finally for this week, we can stitch one of the dividing lines between the segments. With them being dots on the design, my original intention with these was French Knots but having stitched them in place, for me they looked too uneven and irregular so I ditched that and decided to use a whipped double running stitch instead!

Whipped Double Running Stitch Dividing Line…

Stitch the line of dots between the cabin and stockings line (2nd line from top).

I used the dots as my markers and stitched over them with each set of running stitches. As you can see in the line below you can no longer see the dots as I have covered them by the indivual sets of running stitch. Stitch a tiny running stitch on the top edge of the dots and then come back and stitch a tiny running stitch along the bottom edge of the dot and your double running stitches should match perfectly!

If you are unsure of a double running stitch it is really easy. You basically start by stitching 2 rows of running stitch (1 below the other). Make sure the top row matches in line with the other row, like so…

…and then, to add the whipped bit we take another thread and bring it to the surface and then whip it up and down through the running stitches to create a wavy line from one side to the other, by repeating this back again you end up with a lovely circular effect…

Here’s a breakdown of the process…

Step 1: Stitch 2 lines of running stitch directly in line with one another
Step 2: Bring a length of thread up at ‘A’ – stay on the surface and weave it up though the first set of running stitches then around and down the next set. Continue weaving up 1 set and then down another, to the end of the line and take the thread back in at ‘B’
Step 3: Bring the same thread back up at ‘C’ – continue on the surface weaving the thread same as you did in Step 2 – this time in the opposite direction and finish by taking it down at ‘D’

You then have a lovely line of colourful stitches below your stockings and week 5 is complete!…

Make sure you show off your wonderful 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.