Hello! Kathy Martin with you this week with some of my favorite and most asked about techniques for paper crafting. Stitching is one that tops the list so I thought I'd start there. I'm often asked what kind of sewing machine I use because my stitching is so neat. People are usually surprised to hear that I don't use a sewing machine at all, that it's done by hand. Straight stitching along borders is probably my most common stitch and it's done with a pencil, ruler, awl and self healing mat.
As you can see in the above photo, I use a ruler and pencil to draw a straight line, then I use the ruler as a guide for peircing holes at 1/8" increments. Once my holes have been peirced, I erase the pencil lines and start stitching. Following is an example. I'll be using cards for sample projects since it's easier to see the stitching. You can use these techniques on any type of paper crafting project.
A straight stitch was used on the above baby card along the edges of the patterned paper strips. I also do a lot of zigzag stitching.
For the zigzag stitch, you need to draw a second parallel line and peirce holes that are centered between every two on the first line. Here's a look at the zigzag stitch on a project.
A lot of my projects combine straight and zigzag stitches and sometimes I'll trace Nestabilities dies for stitching patterns.
For circles and odd shapes, I eye ball the distance between pierced holes. Here's a card I created recently with traced circles.
Do you see the dry embossed border around the die cut circles? You can click on the photo to enlarge it. Nestabilities dies have the ability to dry emboss a border and often times I'll use it as a guide for stitching.
For this baby card I used a circle and a square Nestability die cut shape and stitched around the embossed borders. You can use the patterns on paper for stitching.
Either stitch directly onto your patterned paper by outlining an object with pierced holes or when you are piercing your holes, place the patterned paper on top of card stock to create a pattern.
The above card is an example where I used patterned paper designs for stitching. Next up, I used the hexagons to stitch around.
I stitched the stamped dress image on the next card. There's also a straight stitch border and oval Nestability die cut.
For the stitching, I use regular all purpose sewing thread from Coats & Clark. I usually use one ply. When I stitch over stamped images or want a more pronounced stitch I double up my thread. You could also use DMC floss.
I hope you found this post useful and that you give hand stitching a try. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments section and I'll do my best to answer them.
Tomorrow's Technique Week topic will be about die cuts. I hope you can join me.
