Sunday stitched – Feathers & Flys

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Today we are going to learn a stitch I love – the fly stitch and its big sister – the feather. I think this stitch in particular can look really dainty and I have used it a lot on things like Christening gowns and smocked dresses. It is also very useful for arty pictorial type works. – great for seaweed and the like.

So, are you ready with hoop and fabric in hand…?

three points in a triangle – bring your needle up at A

down at B

and back up at C with the thread under the needle

You can take the needle down right over the top of your thread now close to point C

Or you can take it down directly below to make a stem – as long as you’d like it to be

You can link several stitches with a short stem in between

as you take the needle down to finish the first stitch bring it up again ready to start the second stitch at point A again.

If you want them to be perfect you can rule lines using your erasable pen

Fly stitch variations could include whipped fly stitch – use a contrasting thread to whip that central stem. This stitch is sometimes called the ‘y’ stitch, open loop or open chain stitch.

Now to her big sister – the Feather stitch. This is just repeated fly stitches but they are stitched side to side and continuously.

-make your first fly stitch as before

then picture a point directly horizontal to your Point C – the bottom of the ‘v’ – it needs to be an even distance to the distance between the top two points         

take the needle down at this point and come at at your new point ‘c’ – to make a second ‘v’

the next stitch goes back to the left in the same manner

If you are having trouble eyeballing your marks you can make four lines using an erasable pen to get you started.

Variations can include a double or triple (or even more) feather – that just means you stitch two or three times to the right before heading back to the left again. Other variations include the closed feather, single feather, maidenhair feather – but we’ll just stick with this for now..:) don't want to confuse you with too many choices.

You can embellish or vary your feather and fly stitches with french knots, lazy daisy stitches, whipping or a double (one on top of the other using two coloured threads) to name just a few.

Have a look at many ideas on my pinboard here.

Some examples from my studio I could find

This is our practise page for today

Download Feather stitch

I have used fly stitch in the leaves – feather stitch with french knots on the outer circle

Fly stitch with french knots on the tips around the centre and chain stitch for the centre circles. 

Hope you enjoy these stitches and play with their many uses

hugs and happy stitching today

Helen

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