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thumbs up for even embroidery stitches

Thumb Marking

People regularly ask me for tips on how to achieve even stitches, and recently I wrote a post about "a stitch in time". Usually my best advice is to visualize the stitch length, take your time, and practice. Then, last week something popped up on the internet.

If you're on Pinterest and follow any stitchers, you may have seen a photo of a thumb with some markings, measuring out spacing on blanket stitch. Brilliant! But I did some searching and couldn't officially nail down the original source. I wish I knew who shared the idea, because I love it.

Since I've always worked primarily by eye, I thought I'd test out this tip and share my thoughts. I was doing some running stitch, and so I adapted the markings a bit to suit my needs.

Thumb Marking

First, I looked at how I typically hold my work and decided that it made more sense for me to mark my thumb tip, rather than the side of my thumb. Then, because I was doing running stitch, I added an extra mark that I could use for the gap between the stitches.

And guess what? It totally worked. Holding your marked thumb up as a gauge is a great help for getting even stitches. However, I also found that it slowed me down considerably. Sometimes that's what you need to do. If you have halfway decent stitching already, you may not want to bother, but if you struggle with even stitching, I'd say, give this a try!

13 comments:

  1. Oh my word.... that is GENIUS!!!!! :)

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  2. Anonymous8:54 AM

    Também adorei essa dica, Mollie! Adoro seu blog. Beijos

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  3. Literally the cleverest thing I think I've ever heard. Shauna's right--GENIUS!

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  4. Brilliant! Thanks for sharing this idea. :)

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  5. Anonymous11:39 AM

    I did Pin this!! Nice to know it works!!!

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    Replies
    1. You were the first person to show me this!

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  6. I pinned that thumb picture myself, struck by how clever it was - esp for someone like me who has difficulty keeping regular length stitches! Good idea to mark your thumb to suit your own style of stitching too : )

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  7. Yes! So clever. Now I can pin it from a trusted source - thanks!!

    (I couldn't find a source for the pic I saw before and I really try hard to only pin from sources, not just random pics)

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  8. Not nailed down the original source yet! Ha ha!

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  9. I saw this everywhere last week, too. My first thought was - I should get that as a tattoo!

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  10. I'm new to this stitching thing (aside from cross-stitching -- which I don't count since I didn't have to free-stitch). This is awesome, thank you thank you!!

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  11. Anonymous2:14 PM

    This is so crazily simple! Wow! Thank you :)

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