The long and short stitch is #36 on my journey to do an embroidery stitch sampler of 100+ stitches. This stitch is used to fill large areas with long and short stitches. It is a satin type stitch and is used to blend colors with different threads. The first row is short and long stitches, and then the next rows are all similar lengths to blend the stitches. It is a great way to add texture and design to your piece.
I drew a rough flower design to fill and used a variegated thread to make it easy to blend the colors, since this is my first try at this stitch. I am excited to try it again and use different color threads and manually blend the colors.
Start with sewing short and long stitches around your shape.
Here is the flower petal with the first outline around complete and beginning to fill in the shape. I prefer how I did the second petal better. Scroll down to take a look, where I made the short stitches about half the length of the long stitches. Also, in the second petal, I tried to make the space between the stitches more even. That’s why this is a sampler!
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Adding the next row of stitches to fill in the shape for the flower petal.
My first flower petal complete with the long and short stitch. I learned that the stitches need to be close together, but not too close. At least I have four more petals to get this figured out!
First petal complete, and starting the second petal! See how my short stitches are about half the length of the long stitches, so that when I begin filling in, they will blend nicely.
The 2nd flower petal is complete. One trick is to get the stitches close together, but not too close that they crowd. I’m beginning to get the hang of how close to get them.
The start of the third petal on this flower. My stitches are starting to look pretty good!
And, my finished sample of the long and short embroidery stitch.
I really like the way this stitch looks. and can’t wait to try it with different threads, even though it works well with the variegated thread.
Check out all of the embroidery projects on Create Whimsy!