100 Stitches - Hemstitch With Coral Stitch Clusters

Time for another 100 Stitches post!  This beautiful stitch is the Hemstitch with Coral Stitch Clusters.

This stitch is in the Drawn Thread Embroidery category.  That means the area to be stitched has to be prepared by drawing out the horizontal threads.  You can read about the process I learned on my first Drawn Thread post.   I started by preparing my fabric and doing the hemstitch on the top and bottom of the stitching area.   Doing the hemstitch makes distinct groups out of the vertical threads.  They are much easier to work with!  I am using perle cotton floss - this is size 5 DMC#351.

The first step is to come up through the fabric at the right side of the area to be stitched.  Pull the floss all the way through:

Pull the floss all the way to the left so that it is laying across the area to be stitched:

Bring the needle around to the right side, leaving part of it laying across the area to be stitched...this will be the start of a loop:

Slip the needle behind three of the groups of vertical threads - notice the needle also went under the working thread but is now coming out over the working thread  - see how this is beginning to form a loop? 

Pull all the way through :

Pulling all the way through draws the three groups together. Just continue the same way with all the vertical groups.  I just went back into the fabric at the left edge of the stitching area and secured my thread underneath.

This is what the underside of the stitching looks like:

Beautiful!  This is a really easy stitch once the preparation work is done.

This is stitch number 78 and is in the Drawn Thread Embroidery section of 100 Stitches.