A satin stitch is a very useful stitch and it will add a lovely variety to any embroidery project. With a little bit of practice it can be mastered by a beginner.
Once you have mastered the running stitch and the backstitch, the satin stitch is a great stitch to learn. You can use the satin stitch to solidly fill in portions of your embroidery project. It is useful for things such as eyes and leaves.
This is a very basic tutorial that you can use to learn how to sew a satin stitch. I recommend you practice on a piece of scrap fabric. Once you are comfortable with how to sew a satin stitch, you can try your hand at an easy embroidery or sewing project, such as this cute little spring chick.
The supplies that you will need to learn to sew a backstitch include
-fabric
How to Sew a Satin Stitch
Step 1:
Place the fabric in the embroidery hoop and tighten.
Step 2:
Cut a length of floss. You do not need a lot, about 9-12 inches should be plenty for practice.
Step 3:
Thread the floss through the needle. Pull the threaded end through just about 4 inches or so. This will create two tails, a short tail and a long tail. Tie a double knot at the end of the long tail. (Note: There are other ways to create the knot but a simple double knot will suffice for a beginner project).
Step 4:
Starting from one end of the shape that you will be filling in, poke the needle up through the fabric. Next you will poke the needle down through the fabric. If your shape is a circle, this will be a very small stitch as you are just starting out filling in the shape.
Step 5:
Return to the area where you first poked the needle through and poke the needle through just to the side of that first point. Pull the embroidery floss through and then poke it down next to the spot where you first went down through the fabric. This stitch will be a little bit longer than the first one.
In order to have a nice consistent look, you will want to keep the points where you poke through the fabric very close together so the stitches have a nice solid look.
Step 6:
Continue following this pattern of poking the needle up on one side of the shape and poking the needle down on the opposite side of the shape. Depending on the shape that you are filling in, the stitch sizes will vary with each stitch. For example, with a circle the stitches will start out small and get longer as you work towards the center of the circle.
Once you pass the center of the circle the stitch size will start to decrease as you work towards finishing off the circle.
Step 7:
Once you have completely filled in the shape it is time to finish off the stitch. On the backside of the fabric, thread the needle through three or four of the stitches, one at a time. When you have done that, cut the embroidery floss and you have completed the satin stitch.
The satin stitch can require a little bit of extra practice to get the hang of it. But it is a stitch that is well worth the effort to learn. I think the satin stitch adds a lovely texture and some finesse to embroidery projects. As you get more experience with it, try using the satin stitch on a variety of shapes. Circles, rectangles, hearts, leaves, flowers, and a variety of other objects are great shapes to try your hand at.
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