Finally, a Decent Stem Stitch!

My stem stitch has always looks like it was intoxicated! They just could not walk a straight line! They were also never uniform or pretty...therefore, I mostly used back-stitch to embroidery any lines. Well, perhaps no more!!! Look at this gorgeous stem stitch...I'm so proud!

This is stitched for a round-robin called Brazilian Embroidery (BE) on Crazy Quilter's International (CQI) Yahoo Group. I stitched it with rayon threads from Ed-Mar in FROST #311. These threads are "Z" twist, which is traditionally the type used for BE work. 

I took my time...stitched left to right...and kept my thread ABOVE the line of stitching. This is backwards from "normal" stem stitch...but correct for Brazilian Embroidery because the threads are not "S" twist as English threads are like perle cotton. If I stitch this again in perle cotton I'll have to keep the thread BELOW the line of stitching.

You probably can't imagine how happy this little accomplishment makes me! I thought I was doomed to just stitch a "crappy" stem stitch! But, now I know there is hope! I can do this...I just need go slow and think of every single little stitch along the way!

The leaves are done in fly stitch...still my favorite leaf to create! And you can see that I used a very sharp #2 lead pencil to draw on my leaf shapes.