Saturday, July 22, 2017

Burden Stitch


Time for another 100 Stitches Plus post!  I just learned how to do this beautiful filling stitch called the Burden Stitch.  

I used perle cotton floss in three different colors.  The bright blue is DMC no. 995, the pink is DMC no. 956 and the light blue is a DMC color variations no. 4022.



The Burden Stitch is a filling stitch.  It is composed of Straight Stitches that are laid horizontally and held in place by vertical Straight Stitches.  

I used the bright blue floss for the horizontal stitches:



I came up through the fabric:


pulled the floss all the way through and went back into the fabric to the right of where my floss first emerged. 



I pulled the floss all the way through and that formed the first horizontal Straight Stitch.



I made five more of these stitches - equally spaced:



Now for the vertical Straight Stitches.  These will be done with the color variations blue and the pink flosses. 



I started with the color variations blue floss.  These stitches will be holding the laid horizontal Straight Stitches in place.  I first came up through the fabric above the first horizontal Straight Stitch: 




and went back into the fabric right above the next horizontal Straight Stitch:


I pulled the floss all the way through to form the first vertical Straight Stitch.  
Next, I formed evenly spaced vertical Straight Stitches all along the horizontal Straight Stitch. 


Next, I used the pink floss.  Notice that I am starting this by coming up through the fabric right below the top horizontal Straight Stitch:


I went back into the fabric right above the third horizontal Straight Stitch:


I kept making these vertical Straight Stitches, alternating the floss colors until I had covered all the horizontal Straight Stitches:


This is a simple stitch to do.  I imagine it would be very effective at filling in large open spaces in embroidery motifs.  I also think it would be nice to use as a border:



Here is a look at the underside of this stitch:





I learned this stitch from the excellent book Embroidery Stitches by Mary Webb.

2 comments:

  1. Hello Kim~

    This is a beautiful stitch. The colors you chose show off the pattern of it well and are so pretty.

    I think you could you this stitch in a few ways, like the ones you mentioned and I think a sampler of stitches would be lovely, too.

    Wishing you a good week ahead,
    Darlene

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  2. Hi Darlene - Thank you! Yes this seems like a versatile stitch for sure. Have a great week!

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