One more work in progress

Currently, I am working on one more project other than the fall rose project.

You could see the progress in the image below:



I am using six stitches for this pattern. Satin stitch, herring bone stitch, French knot, chain stitch, stem stitch, and my favorite long and short stitch.

Autumn Rose Project--Long and short stitch--Step 3

We can add one more shade to this flower petal--- a dark pink.

Stitch the same way as you did for the second row. However the stitches need not be close to each other since we are just going to add depth to the shading of the petal.





The long and short stitch petal is done with three shades of color.

Autumn Rose Project--Long and short stitch--Step 3

This is the important step in the long and short stitch. We are going to fill up the second row using one strand of thread. In the basic long and short embroidery, the second row of stitches start at the points where the first row stitches end. However to get a smooth blending effect, we should bring up the needle through the first row of stitches by spliting up the thread of the first row of stitches, not at the endpoints of the stitches in the previous row. Look at the image below:



Because the petal is small, I decided to limit the long and short stitch to only two rows. Since the second row is also the last row, the stitches should be directed toward and end at the inner edge of the petal.



Continue to place the stitches close to each other as you did for first row.

Autumn Rose Project--Long and short stitch--Step 2

Let us start with the first row of stitches. Use 2 strands of pale pink thread.

First, we will stitch a long stitch then a short one. To stitch the long stitch, bring up the needle at a point on the petal's outer edge and bring it down at a point on the edge of the first row partion guideline as shown in the images below. You can enlarge the images to get a close-up view of the stitches.






Now our first long stitch is over.



Now let us do the short stitch. Bring up your needle at a point very close to where you started the long stitch. The long and short shading will look better if the stitches are as close as possible. Refer to the image below.



Now end the stitch a little shorter than the previous one while following the guidelines for direction.



Usually the length of the short stitch should be three-fourth of the long stitch. Continue in the same manner to complete the first row. The finished first row will look like this:

Autumn Rose Project--Long and short stitch--Step 1

After three months of hectic days I am back again to continue with my autumn rose project. Let us learn the long and short stitch.

Long and short stitch is used to fill up a large area like flower petals, where we cannot use the satin stitch.

As we did for satin stitch, in step 1, we need to draw the guidelines to set up the direction for the stitches. Refer to the image below to know how to draw the guidelines. I have also drawn the partition guidelines for each row of stitches in the petal. We are going to stitch three rows of long and short stitch with three shades of colors---from light to dark pink.