Stitch this Fabulous Sampler

If you want to stitch this wonderful sampler and learn over 30 Hand Embroidery stitches then head over to this page for all the information.
If you have purchased the Pre Printed Fabric Panel or have tranferred the Template to your fabric – scroll down to the ‘Start Stitching’ section to get started straight away.
Where to stitch…
Let’s mark up the remaining space on the top right of the circle sampler – one area for this weeks stitch and one for next.
Mark 2 lines that are 2cm apart next to the stem stitch line (about 0.5mm away from the stem stitch) on the top right of your sampler circle.

Next mark 2 more lines (leaving a small gap from the last line) this time 1cm apart…

We will leave the 2cm sized line for next week and concentrate on filling in the smaller line that is 1cm in width.
Start Stitching…
Striped Woven Band

A really nice band stitch that would be fab for colourful borders. It is created by working a foundation of stitches and then working the striped effect on the surface of these.
I used 2 strands for the foundation stitches…
Work evenly spaced horizontal straight stitches down the length of the 1cm line (I refer to this as the ladder)
The striped effect is worked from the top of the ladder to the bottom – so to make it easier – turn your hoop around so the bottom edge (straight edge) now becomes the top. This will make it easier to work and when you come to complete the bit where it tapers off on the circle edge – the stitch will make sense by then!

Now choose 2 colours that you want to give the striped effect. I chose a pink and cream colour and used a full 6 strands of each to fill the space up quicker and give a bolder effect.
To make it easier – thread these up in 2 different needles so you don’t need to keep going back and forth – tapestry needles would be ideal.
Bring each thread up through at the top left of the ladder right next to each other in the corner.

Play with this and take your time if it doesn’t make sense at first.
These 2 threads are going to weave in and out of the ladder rungs (alternating with each other) and create a single line of striped thread down the side of the ladder.
- Take the pink over the top rung & the cream under the top.
- Take the pink under the next rung and the cream over – pass them across one another as you go so they interjoin and create a single threaded line.

As you can see – each thread goes over one rung and under the next (alternate next to each other).
They are crossed over each other before the next weave so that you create the striped effect.
Keep going all the way down and take the thread to the back when you reach the bottom.

Create an identical row in the same colour formation next to this one – again weaving from the top to the bottom.
Keep the rows close to each other so that when finished the foundation ladder is covered completely.



This is one of those stitches that has you scratching your head at the start trying to figure out how to create the effect but once you realise it is simply weaving in and out and crossing over as you go – it stitches up relatively quickly!
If you need some help or have more questions just ask in the FB group to find out how everyone else is getting on.
Not long now until we have a full quarter of the circle filled up on the sampler – there are some nice easy ones for next week!
Happy Stitching!
