While experimenting with all kinds of darning stitches, I found surface darning stitch to be the most stunning one. It is not just for darning a hole and also gives a fancy look. Wanna how I did it?
Let me show you,
Surface Darning
Surface darning has little contact with the fabric. This is basically a detached stitch. It has stitched a layer of straight, slightly spaced threads on the surface. Then, another layer of threads is woven through the first at a 90-degree angle.
That’s what is surface darning stitch. Isn’t it interesting among all the names of stitches? Let’s do it-
Thread my needle with the embroidery floss. That’s how to start a hand stitch.
Decide on the area you want to fill and mark the boundaries if needed (using a fabric-safe marker or chalk). You can skip this part if you are confident about your design. But I like to mark my darn pattern.
Now, for the fun part!
I’m going to make a bunch of straight stitches, one after the other, covering the area. Insert the needle from the start.
Push back the needle in the above line. The straight stitch should be 2 inches long. You can adjust the length according to your surface stitch needs.
Just bring your needle back up near where the first stitch started, leave a little gap, and make another straight stitch parallel to the first.
Keep doing this up, across, down. Until you’ve filled the whole space with these neat, slightly spaced lines. Think of it as laying down a foundation. That will make strong stitch hand sewing.
Alright, here’s where it gets a little fancy.
Turn your fabric 90 degrees (or just reposition your hand if that’s easier). Just like in Invisible mending.
Bring your needle up near the edge of your laid stitches; now it’s time to weave. Go over the first thread and under the next. Keep alternating like that all the way across. Reaching the other side, take the needle down to secure it.
Pro tip: Don’t pull the thread too tight. just snug enough to keep things tidy.
Ready for round two?
Bring your needle back up near the same edge, but leave a little space from the first row. Now, weave back across, but switch it up. Go under where you went over last time and over where you went under. This is like a straight version of twill darn.
It’s like creating a little basket weave. It looks complicated, but it’s super satisfying once you get into the rhythm.
Once you’ve finished a row, take a second to adjust. If the threads are looking a little wonky, just nudge them into place with your needle or even your fingernail. The goal here is straight, even lines no one’s perfect, so just fix what you need to as you go.
Keep repeating the weaving process—up at one edge, weave across, down at the other edge. That’s how to do surface darning stitch. By the end, you will have a beautiful surface darning stitch.
Isn’t it so beautiful? 😍 I even did so many Surface darning stitch patterns. And each of them comes out so good. So why stay in boring embroidery? Try it out and share it with sewinginspo.
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