Stitch School: Seed Stitch

The fourteenth in a series of posts about common (and not so common) embroidery stitches—what they are and how to do them.

Also called speckling stitch and isolated back stitch, seed stitch is mostly used to fill a shape with bits of color. You could also use it to show seeds if you're embroidering birds :)

This is an easy stitch—essentially two short straight stitches side by side—but easy is a good thing since we're all so busy preparing for the holidays. I know I haven't had much time for embroidery lately.

Here's how to do it. Bring your thread to the front and then to the back a short distance away.



Pull your thread through and come up again right next to the beginning of the first stitch—not in the same hole but one thread over. Then take your needle to the back right next to the end of the first stitch.



You'll have two small stitches side by side and it should look just like a little seed.



When you work these stitches place them randomly and angle them differently so they look like they're scattered over the surface—just like seeds would be.



No examples this week as I've exhausted my stash of embroidery and can't find any new or different stitches on anything I own. If any of you have examples of embroidery that you haven't seen before and don't know what it is, email me a picture and I'll try to identify it and figure out how to do it.

Next week we'll do something called Scroll Stitch—it's a really pretty line stitch with little scrolling knots along the length of it.

And if you've missed any of the lessons in this series, there's a handy list of previous Stitch School posts in the menu to the right.