Silk Shading/Needle Painting

Tips and Tricks

Long and short stitch is considered by many to be one of the hardest techinques to master. Hopefully these tricks and tips help make your life a bit easier.

Let’s talk about the materials you need:

FABRIC

A medium plus weight linen is ideal for shading. I sometimes will back my linen with another fabric like muslin or calico to help keep the stitches secure and help support them. If using a linen or even a cotton, make sure to pre-launder your fabric to shrink it.

You can also use a high count good quality cotton or silk fabric. Silk dupioni works even better. Silk is my favorite and preferred by professional thread painters, but it’s finicky to work with. Make sure when you cut your fabric, it’s squared on grain. If it’s not cut and mounted on grain, it can lead to terrible puckering and warps.

TRANSFERING PATTERN

Transfer your pattern using prick and pounce if you can. An alternative is to trace the design using a light box or sunny window. Make sure you’re using a good water soluble pen. You can also use a water soluble transfer paper, especially for fabrics that are too dark or thick to trace through. Be wary of heat erase pens, they leave ghost marks that are permanent and can ruin the piece. The ink my look like it has disappears, but it’s always inside and on the fabric and can show back up at any time. Same goes for regular carbon paper. Try to only use transfer methods that are non-damaging to the fabric.

MOUNTING EMBROIDERY

I recommend using a slate frame to mount your fabric. But stretcher bars work just as well and are cheaper and easier to set up. Use stainless steel tacks to secure the fabric. Other tacks can rust and stain the fabric. A hoop can work in a pinch. I love quilter’s embroidery hoops. They’re sturdy and hold the fabric more securely. Use a good quality hoop you can either tighten with a screwdriver or has a wingnut. You can always bind your hoop with bias tape or hoop tape if you feel the fabric is slipping too much in the hoop or if you’re worried about hoop burn. Just make sure it’s much larger than your actual embroidery design. You should have plenty of space around the pattern. Remember to always keep the fabric drum tight. I can tell you exactly how to mount it up in the hoop or on stretcher bars if you need that info. If using a hoop, remember to take it out of the hoop if not actively stitching to prevent hoop marks and burns.

PROTECTING THE FABRIC

It helps to lay down acid-free tissue paper over your fabric to protect the it and stitches while working. You can move it around as needed to access the areas you’re working on.

NEEDLES

Also use good quality, new embroidery needles. I love Tulip brand or John James size 10. Old needles form burs which wear the floss down more quickly.

THREAD

Start with stranded cotton. DMC or Anchor brand floss are a good place to start. If you’re looking to step it up a bit, look into Cosmo floss or MADEIRA. It’s amazing and superior to DMC or Anchor. I actually use silk floss a lot as well. It’s thinner and allows for greater detail. It can be hard to work with though and is a bit more expensive. A good alternative is regular sewing threads, like Gutermann, they work to get the same results for detail work.

Cutting and working with your floss;

Don’t cut all 6 threads off your skein. Separate out only one thread, strip that thread from your skein, then cut it off. Cut the piece of floss 16-18inches long. Any more will wear your floss down, making it fuzzy and it will loose its shine. You can gently wrap the threads still on your skein around it to keep them from getting knotted up. I use DMC’s stitchbow storage system to hold my skeins. It’s very convenient and keeps them organized. I just wrap the un-cut threads back onto the bow after I’ve cut off my one thread.

Grain of floss

Make sure you’re paying attention to the grain of your floss. I cut one thread at a time from the skein. Make sure you’re pulling the floss from the proper end of the skein. I then thread my needle with the non-cut end of the floss. This ensures I’m stitching with the grain of the floss. Embroidery thread has a grain, kind of like wood has a grain. Therefore, If you rub along embroidery thread in the wrong direction, you’ll be working against the grain, and subsequently, you will achieve inferior results with your stitching, because you’re pulling the fibers against the grain. To ensure that you’re not stitching against the grain. Always thread your needle from the same end of the floss, which should be pulled from the right end of the skein. To make sure you do this, you pull your floss from the right end of the skein and cut only one strand (of the six) at a time, threading the “front” of the strand into the needle (the end opposite the cut you just made), that way, every time you thread your needle from floss from a pull skein, you’re always threading it so that the thread travels in the same direction through the fabric, and that direction is with the grain and not against it. Stitching “with the grain” of the thread will result in smoother stitching, in fewer knots as you work with your thread, and embroidery thread that doesn’t wear down as quickly. Stitch with only one thread on the needle.

Keep it clean

Try to wash your hands before stitching. The oils from your hands can collect on the floss and fabric, which isn’t great for them. It will degrade the fabric and floss over time. But washing your piece when you’ve finished will help remove anything that may have unintentionally transferred. I can send you info on exactly how to launder your piece when you’ve finished if you’d like as well. It also helps to block or damp stretch the piece when you’ve finished stitching. This will ensure a perfectly flat embroidery with no puckering or warps.

Casting on and off

I personally use a pin stitch to secure my thread. But a waste knot is basically the same thing. It’s just easier to do and explain. Here’s info:

Always start your thread with a waste knot. Regular knots will come undone over time and leave the back of the piece untidy. They also leave bumps on the front after the piece has been mounted. The best way to secure your thread is with a waste knot.

To do it, start by making a large knot at the end of your floss. Go down into the fabric from the FRONT side of the embroidery. Take 3 very small seed stitches (anchoring stitches) somewhere in the design or on a design line where they’ll be covered up by other stitches. You can then pull up on your knot and cut it off as close to the fabric as possible. The seed stitches will hold the thread very securely. And once stitched over. They’re completely invisible.

To end your thread do the same. Take 3 tiny seed where they’ll be covered up by other stitches.

If you can’t start or end your thread this way because you’ve run out of design space, weave the thread behind other stitches on the backside of your embroidery, then make a small knot securing your threads.

Waste knots are by far the most secure way to anchor your threads and are invisible once stitched over. This is also what’s taught at the Royal School Of Needlework. It’s the proper way to secure your thread.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K1jFqcSRDhA

Stitching;

Don’t let your floss twist up on you. If it happens, untwist it in the opposite direction; If using a hoop, just let it hang from it.

You want the stitches to lay perfectly flat right next to each other. A laying tool is sometimes used to help achieve perfectly smooth flat stitches. An Aficot can also be used to polish the stitches when you’re done. It can also be used as a laying tool. Don’t let your stitches cross over each other. They should lay next to each other so no fabric is showing, but not on top of each other. You want one flat, even layer of stitches.

Picking out your colors;

Use your brand of floss’s color chart to pick out your colors. They list them in families and it makes it easy to pick out the colors you need. The more colors you use to get from your light to dark, or from one color to another, the better the results will be. Another trick is to use an app called “Pixel Picker”. It isolates the different colors in a photo or artwork so you can see them better. I’ll use this to match my colors of floss to the reference photo. It helps give you a better idea of what color is needed in each area.

Long and Short Stitch;

A lot of people teach to work in rows, stating with one color, then another color for the next row, blending as you work. It’s a fine technique but can lack realism. I work more in patches using many threads and colors at once. I try to mimic what ever photo or drawing I’m using as reference. But when you’re first learning, working in rows is the easiest.

Draw rows inside your pattern, one element at a time. These are just general guide lines. Some stitches will go over the drawn line, some will come up short.

Most of the time it helps to outline your design line first in a split stitch, but not so much if you’re doing fur or fluffy feather. Split stitch one element at a time, then do your long and short stitch. Then move onto the next element.

Remember that anything in the background gets stitched first. So if an element is covered by another, it would get stitched first. Work from the back to the front. So the background to the foreground. If an element is covered by another, work the one in the back first. Then move to the next. Work your split stitch over that element, over the existing long short stitches. Then work your long short stitch going over that split stitch line. This will help give it a 3D effect but also hide any fabric that may show through where elements overlap. For example if you’re working a flower. Start with the petal that’s covered by the others, furthest back. Start with your split stitch, but don’t split stitch any part of the design line that’s part of another petal. Only work a split stitch on the petal line that’s exposed. Then work your long short stitch, bringing them over the split stitch line, covering it. Then move to the next petal; split stitch over the previous existing stitches and the design line. Then work your long and short stitch. Continue working in that way.

For your first row or section of long short, come up through the fabric, then down over the design line or split stitch line. For the following rows/sections, come up through the first row of stitches, piercing the actual thread it’s coming though, then down into your fabric. Splitting the thread will lock the previous stitch in place and help it to lay flat against the fabric. Remember that you want the floss to lay as flat as humanly possible to the fabric. It’s kind of like doing split stitch, but in rows or areas. Then continue working down the element. Coming up through the stitches and down into the fabric.

Bring your stitches deep into the previous row for some of your stitches, almost covering the existing stitch at times. Think of the technique more like long and longer stitches vs long short. You want to make sure you really stagger them. You don’t want uniform stitches. But in general, don’t make them too long or too short. They should be around 3/8 of an inch long; But they’d all be different lengths. By making some long and some short, it helps blend the areas better and creates a smoother more even surface.

Make sure your stitches are going it the correct direction. Draw guide lines on your fabric, inside your design to help guide you. To make stitches look smooth and shiny, keep the direction of your stitches correct. Don’t change your angles too drastically. If you need to get around a curve, shorten your stitches a bit. Add a wedge stitch in when going around a curve to change the direction of your stitches.

My best advice is to just go for it. Don’t be scared or intimidated. It’s hard, but it can be a very forgiving technique. If your not happy with the way it’s looking, take a picture of it, put it down and walk away. Don’t even look at it. Later, look at the photo and see if it’s really as bad as you remember. Often you’ll find it looks a lot better than you remember. If there’s still something that’s not quite right, you can always pick out those stitches and try again. I’m sure I’ve forgotten something, so if you have any questions, need clarification, or help with anything, just let me know.