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How can I get my embroidery stitches even?

November 9th, 2012 Leave a comment Go to comments

I am a beginner at embroidery and love what can be done with it. For the life of me though, I cannot get my stitches even and consistent so it always looks like a two year old did it. Any suggestions?

If you are doing free-hand embroidery – make a visual pattern with a self-erasing (air disappearing) pen. You can mark even intervals for the stitches – use a ruler if you need to.

There are a huge number of pre-printed embroidery patterns that you can download for free and use for your embroidery. Use a light-box and transfer to your material and indicate where each stitch is to begin, end.

I often use my pinky finger nail to measure where the next stitch is to be taken so as to make my handwork stitches more even.

If you are doing work on an even fabric – a cross stitch fabric – evenweave – linen – then you can count the number of threads for each stitch.

If you are doing cross stitch as the stitch — be sure to count the number of threads, squares. Make sure that the thread goes in flat — untwist the thread while still in the air — I use something called a laying tool (a small dull pointed long cylindrical metal tool) to make sure that the thread lies perfectly flat for each stitch – yes, I admit, I am a perfectionist!

HTH – Please remember to leave a note when you vote!

  1. ilovechocolate
    November 9th, 2012 at 22:07 | #1

    you could use a taylor chalk (which is easily removable) you should draw a line with a ruler and just stitch on-top of the lines. If you want to be even more neat, you can measure the stitches
    References :
    Hope this helped you 🙂

  2. Stargazer
    November 9th, 2012 at 22:27 | #2

    If you are doing free-hand embroidery – make a visual pattern with a self-erasing (air disappearing) pen. You can mark even intervals for the stitches – use a ruler if you need to.

    There are a huge number of pre-printed embroidery patterns that you can download for free and use for your embroidery. Use a light-box and transfer to your material and indicate where each stitch is to begin, end.

    I often use my pinky finger nail to measure where the next stitch is to be taken so as to make my handwork stitches more even.

    If you are doing work on an even fabric – a cross stitch fabric – evenweave – linen – then you can count the number of threads for each stitch.

    If you are doing cross stitch as the stitch — be sure to count the number of threads, squares. Make sure that the thread goes in flat — untwist the thread while still in the air — I use something called a laying tool (a small dull pointed long cylindrical metal tool) to make sure that the thread lies perfectly flat for each stitch – yes, I admit, I am a perfectionist!

    HTH – Please remember to leave a note when you vote!
    References :

  3. kay
    November 9th, 2012 at 22:50 | #3

    Practice. Get some fabric with small checks, like a small gingham, and work on keeping your stitches evenly sized, and evenly tensioned. It all comes with practice.

    Not all stitches need to be of equal size in some embroidery… here, for instance, is a quilt square I did for a friend — the stitches are proportional, but not even: http://www.picturetrail.com/sfx/album/view/21784677 That’s a pretty informal style of embroidery, but suitable for the subject.
    References :
    53 years of embroidering

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