Session 4: Getting Started

All right. Now that you have seen all the different ways to transfer your patterns to your fabric, we're ready to start stitching. So we need to hoop our fabric. You can see I have my hoop here. I have this side that says, "this side up." I'm gonna...

And that actually just refers to how to hoop your fabrics. You wanna make sure that you're not trying to put this side down through it like this. That's not gonna work very well. You actually wanna, you might break your hoop. You wanna make sure that when you attach your hoop, you open it up as wide as you need.

If you're doing like thicker fabrics, you're gonna actually need to open it really, really wide. Then we're just gonna pop this. I'm gonna put my lip down. We're gonna pop our fabric onto our hoop as follows. Now, some people some people would follow the directions of this side up more thoroughly and actually stitch so that they are working on the hollow, here.

That's, I've not seen it done a lot, but I've seen it done a little, and if you like doing that, then feel free. I like to do mine up like this so that it's kind of pulling the fabric up towards me. Again, if you have any problems with grasping, be sure to use a thimble to get a better grip on that little... Um, nut? I'm not so...

Turning device up here? Tightener, the hoop tighter? Let's call it that. Or, of course you can use your pliers, which you can just turn, turn it as you go, and that'll tighten it up. Now you do wanna make sure it's pretty tight.

But also, before you fully tighten it, don't leave a little bump in it like that. You wanna loosen it as best you can because you put it on there really tight. And straighten that out and make sure it's nice and straight. But definitely don't pull the fabric too, too hard. You don't wanna stretch it.

The nice thing about having stabilizer on the wrong side is that it will keep you from being able to stretch it too much. It keeps it nice and tight back there. So, once you have it tightened and tapped, you wanna tap it and listen to it. And it should sound like a drum. It should kinda have a little bit of give, but mostly just taunt in there.

And that means that you're ready to start stitching. So, here I have all set up, my little... My little hoop with my thread. Now you'll see my thread, I've not tied a knot in the end. You actually don't need to tie a knot to start stitching.

I always did that when I was younger, but I learned when I got a little older and wiser, that's not required. But, once you start stitching, you're gonna start from the wrong side of the fabric. So you're gonna poke and use your finger. Find where I have a line here, so I'm gonna poke my needle up through and hold my hoop. And I wanna watch on the wrong side, and make sure I have about inch and a half to two-inch tail back there.

Once I have that tail, I'm gonna put my finger on it. And, you know, whatever stitch I'm doing, we're just gonna do maybe some running stitches. Let's see, so first I'm gonna poke my needle down. And we're gonna do this as a more smooth action, but since we're just starting out, I'm gonna wrap the thread around the needle like that, and bring the needle up up the right side, because embroidery is mostly just worked on the right side of the fabric. Bring it up so that it pokes, ooop!

So that it pokes right out, or you can't get going. Now, you're gonna poke it down. I've got it on the back like I had it before. And you're gonna bring your needle up, like so. So you can see I have the needle through the fabric here.

And on the back, the needle over the floss. And then you just push that through, or pull it, whatever you prefer. Be careful not to get a knot, which can happen quite easily. If you catch it before it gets too tight, it'll just pull right out like that, so keep an eye on it. And there you go.

You've got your first stitch. It's a pretty big stitch. But it's starting to just cure that stitch on the back side because we've tucked the tail under the stitch. So as we work, we'll go ahead and pull the tail over the floss, or pull the floss over the needle. And form our stitches as we would.

So we're gonna pop that through. We'll do maybe one more. And you'll see that, at that point, the tail, which I'm wrapping around again, is coming undone and you just gotta double-check it back there. The tail can be a little wiley, especially when you're towards the end. And we'll do one more stitch.

Pull it right through. And you can see that tail is almost completely tucked underneath, so that's gonna secure it and keep it there, especially when I pull the thread. And that is safe and secure, and it looks nice as you work with it. So then you could just start stitching, and stitch your way along. And, you know, do whatever kind of stitches you wanted to do.

I'm gonna do just some running stitches 'cause they're pretty easy. Do a couple at a time. And let's say, you're pretty finished, you don't wanna stitch anymore. You only had to do three or four inches on this one, maybe. And that was all you were doing on this particular portion.

So, when that's the case, you're gonna go until you have one stitch left to do for that portion of your pattern. Or, until you only have about five inches of thread or floss left on your needle. And you can see my needle here, I've just folded over the thread, and as I use it, I'll pull and I'll use more and more as I go. But, once you only have five inches left, or you only have one stitch left, you wanna insert your needle where that one stitch finishes. And then pull it to the wrong side.

And then take the needle with the thread and just go underneath your little stitches there. And I like to do it kinda of back and forth, as I find that that makes it work. You can also do one of these where you like, back up on itself. And that's gonna secure your stitch. And you can just clip that right off and you're finished.

So that's how to begin and end any stitching that you're doing as you're embroidering. Now that you have that under your belt, we're ready to start learning about all the different stitches. Those 14 ones I'm gonna teach you are coming up. We'll start with the running stitch and the back stitch. So stay tuned.