100 stitches - Coral Stitch

The next stitch I have learned on my 100 Stitches saga is the coral stitch. I used three strands of dmc floss - color number 995 - a beautiful electric blue! I stitched this with a #24 chenille needle on 100% cotton. This stitch is worked from right to left. First come up through the fabric and pull your floss to the left. Make sure it stays there! 100 Stitches suggests holding it down in place with your thumb.

The coral stitch is essentially a line of floss held down with tiny stitched knots. You can determine how far apart you want the knots for your decorative purposes. To make the first knot, go into the fabric and take a very small stitch by coming up under the laying down floss

Here is a larger view of what the position of everything should look like:

Now you pull your floss all the way through making sure the needle goes above the lower line of the floss "loop"

now pull the needle all the way through...

now pull to the left to form a knot!

Next, determine how far away you want the next knot and do the same setup again. Under:

through, over, and pull to the left!

keep going and to finish simply take your needle back down through the fabric right at the final knot.

Here is what my coral stitching looks like - heehee...I need a bit more practice before I use this in an actual project!

For me, this stitch is a hard one to make look even and neat. For some reason, I have trouble with the knotted stitches - it seems like right at the critical "knot forming" second when I am pulling the floss and seeing the knot form, something either in my pulling tension, pulling direction or needle position goes wrong and I come up with an uneven knot. I know it will get better with practice - it did with the bullion stitch :) This stitch is #54 and is in the knotted stitches section of 100 Stitches.