Advanced Embroidery: Oyster Stitch

1. Intro: Oyster Stitch: Welcome to Advanced embroidery. In this class, we're going to focus on the oyster stitch, which is based on some variations on the chain stitch. My name is Becca Ron. I'm a full time teaching artist, and I use a lot of embroidery in my work, both on fabric and on paper. Most beginning embroidery classes give you a sampler of about ten stitches, and you make a bunch of stripes of these different kind of stitches. In this class, we're going to work a little bit differently. We're going to focus in on one more complex stitch that builds on those ones you might have learned in a beginner class. This advanced class is going to use the same materials that you've used in other embroidery projects, some thread, some fabric, a needle, and some scissors. But what we're going to do is challenge you a little bit to do some more complex stitches that have multiple steps to them. Oyster stitch looks like this, and you can use them individually or you can chain them together to make kind of a border. So if this looks like fun, then join me in the next lesson and we'll jump in and get started stitching some oyster stitches. 2. Project & Materials: Okay, your project for this class is to just make a sample. The best way to learn these kind of more advanced embroidery stitches is to just practice. And so you need to make a few of them over and over so that you can really learn how to stitch works. So you can choose to stitch on anything. Make just a few stitches. And in fact, these are great examples of the kind of thing I'm looking for, just enough that you can practice what you've learned. Next, let's talk about the materials you'll need to be able to practice this stitch. So let's start with the very first tool you're going to need is a needle. The needle I have here, stuck into a little sample of linen is a Chanel needle. Chenal needles are my favorite to stitch with. They have a really large eye and a nice sharp point. You can find those in the same kind section where you find other kinds of hand sewing needles in your favorite craft store. So look for a Chanel needle. Then you want to choose your thread. Now, for oyster stitch, the size of the stitch really depends on the size of the thread you're using to make it close up so that it makes this oyster shell shape. You want a pretty thick thread. So I'm going to stitch my samples using six stranded embroidery thread, and you've probably seen this before, you might even have some in your sash. I'm going to use all six strands to stitch the samples that I'm going to show you during class, and that looks like a couple of the samples on the sheet here. This one and the ones in green are stitch with six strands of embroidery thread. If you want more of a challenge, you can choose from a whole variety of other kinds of threads to try your stitches. Here are some other suggestions for great kinds of thread that you could use. My very favorite to stitch with is pearl cotton. This is a size eight pearl cotton and it comes in larger sizes than this. You can find size five and size three pretty easily. It comes in little balls like this. You can also find it on these spools. I would say, next challenge I would try was stitching with pearl cotton. And if you want a little added bonus after that is to try a variegated color. This line of stitches here on my example is stitched with a variegated color thread. You can see the stitch changes color like stitch by stitch, and that's fun to do. Pearl cotton is a great option, and if you want to give yourself even more of a challenge, you can try a novelty thread. The one here with the sparkle, this is called dazzle that's made by Wonderfil. It's a rayon and metallic. Um, this one is very slippery. Keeping your stitch tension is a little more challenging with this, but it gives this great sparkle metallic finish. In my other hand, is a thread called co vita by DMC, and that's a wool thread. It's like a tapestry wool, and that's also really fun to stitch with. You can choose from any kind of thread that you get excited about. Here is a little example. That's the sparkle thread that these are stitched with in the center right there. Okay, so we've talked needle and thread. The last thing you need is a piece of fabric, and I've got two options here. I'm going to stitch samples in this class on this kind of even weave linen. This is like an embroidery fabric, and I found this in the same section of the craft store with the cross stitch fabric. I think this one is a really fun one to stitch on. I like that it's got a little bit of body, a little stiffness to it. That's one option. You also could stitch on my personal favorite, which is a piece of wool and rayon blend felt. Now, the advantage of stitching on felt is that it has a little bit of thickness, and so it's really hard to pull your stitches too tight. That means it helps you out with getting the tension on your stitches and having them turn out nice and even and smooth. Here are two great options for the kind of fabric to stitch your samples on. Of course, you can use whatever you have available. Now, you will notice I don't have an embroidery hoop out on my desk here. I don't personally stitch with an embroidery hoop very often at all. For me, they're uncomfortable and in the way, so I don't actually like stitching with them. Now, you're absolutely welcome to use one if it helps you with your stitches. But that's the reason I choose these two stiffer fabrics to work on is that I don't need the embroidery hoop to be able to hold on to the fabric for me. So up to you, choose the one that you like the most. A couple other things that are helpful, of course, a pair of scissors so that you can cut some pieces of thread. And you might find valuable a marking pen. This is a friction pen made by pilot, and this is a heat reactive ink. So I can write on my linen fabric. Then all I have to do is heat it up with either an iron or a hair dryer, and once the heat hits the ink, it will disappear. For instance, when I did this little sample of this sunflower shape here, I actually traced around a penny with a friction marker like this so I could make a circle to do my stitches on. It might be great to have a marking pen if you want to make yourself a line or a shape that you want to stitch around. That covers all the materials we need to start stitching. In the next lesson, we're going to do just a quick review of some basic stitches and then we'll move on to oyster stitch. 3. Stitching the Oyster Stitch: Most of what I would consider an advanced embroidery stitch are built off of another kind of stitch. So you might have heard of, you might have tried before a chain stitch. That's one of the most common basic embroidery stitches. So Oyster stitch is actually built off of a twisted chain stitch, a little slip, and then another chain stitch, which kind of surrounds the center stitch. So the components of this stitch, you probably have done before. But what happens is we're going to put all three parts together and it's going to make this really kind of distinctive looking stitch. I'm going to put a couple of still photos really close up up on the screen so we can talk a little about what oyster stitch looks like. So Oyster stitch is an individual stitch, so they make kind of an oval shape when you stitch them, and you can use them individually, so they make a shape kind of like a berry or a bud. If you stitch them in green, they look like leaves. You can also make some oyster stitches, which kind of meet end to end, and that makes kind of a trim or a beaded kind of border, and I really love the way that looks. There are lots of ways to use these stitches. Now, if you look closely at the structure of a stitch, there's a lot of threads that look like they're going all kinds of places, and they'll make more sense as we get to stitching this. But the center of an oyster stitch is made up of a twisted chain. And so we'll do one twisted chain stitch. We're going to slip the thread underneath one part of the stitch, so it makes an extra twist on that inside, and then we're going to surround that whole thing with another chain stitch. So Oyster stitch works in three parts. Let's start out by just reviewing a twisted chain in case you haven't done one of those in a while. I'm going to move my examples out of the way, and I'm going to grab some thread and a needle. I'm going to stitch this one in blue because I think you'll be able to see it on camera the very best. For this stitch, I'm going to use all six strands of the six stranded embroidery thread, which is a little bit unusual. I don't usually stitch with a thread this thick. But oyster stitch, I think looks best if you have a thicker thread that can fill out all of the parts of the stitch. I've threaded my needle, I'm going to tie a knot in the other end. Let's just start off by reviewing how you do a twisted chain stitch. A good rule of thumb in this example is that we're going to work on the left side of the stitch. If you remember one thing about this stitch, things are always going to go to the left. First thing, I'm going to bring my needle up just from the back to the front of the fabric anywhere, and I'm going to pull it through until it stops at the knot. For a twisted chain stitch, I'm going to put my needle down on the right side of where the thread is coming out. My thread is coming out on the left, I'm going to go down, and then I'm going to bring my needle tip up. And park the needle right there. I've done a down up stitch. I'll hold this close to the camera and the space that I've left between the down and up of that stitch is just about maybe a little shy of a quarter of an inch. That's about the size that I'm going to make this oyster stitch. It will turn out a little larger than that when I finish up my stitch. I've parked the needle there. Then I'm going to grab my working thread. That's the thread that's coming out of the fabric, and I'm going to wrap this. If I were doing a regular chain stitch, I would take my thread and I would wrap it just around the back of the needle. That would make a regular chain stitch. But instead, I want to make a twisted chain. I have to put a twist in my thread as I wrap it around. The way to do that is I'm going to take my working thread, I'm going to cross over the needle. I'm on the other side, and then I'm going to go back towards the left. My thread has gone over the needle and then hooks back towards the left side. I'll do that movement one more time so you can watch. I'm taking my working thread. I'm crossing over the needle, and then I'm going back to the left side and hooking it underneath. You can see the thread that's lying on top of the fabric is now leaning just a little bit to one side. Once I've done that wrap, I'm going to go ahead and push the needle through and pull And I'm pulling just until the thread closes up on that piece that's coming out of the center. If I hold the still close to the camera, you can see, now we've got a twist in that chain stitch. You can see the legs on the bottom of the stitch criss cross over top of one another. I always think these look like the ribbons that they make for breast cancer awareness and that kind of thing. That's the shape of the stitch that we're making. Is that kind of ribbon shape. Next step, we're going to do a little slip stitch so that we can get our thread, which is right now now up at the top of the stitch, we actually want to move the thread down to the bottom. I want you to look carefully at your twisted chain stitch. I'll hold mine up close again, and the leg of the stitch that's underneath is on the left hand side. I can see just like a little tail sticking out on the left hand side. What I'm going to do is take my needle and I want to slide my needle from the top to the bottom underneath that left leg of the ribbon. I'm going to just bring this down, and I'm going to show you I'm sliding underneath the left leg, and I'll hold this close to the camera again. I'm not going through the fabric at all. I'm just going underneath that little left hand tail, and it's the one that's under the cross underneath. Now, I'm just going to pull that through. I've not gone through the fabric, but I'm just slipping a thread. And this, I want to pull just so that the thread lays down next to the other stitches. Here we go. It makes this beautiful braided section right in the center. I'm just laying it down, so I'm not pulling anything too tight, it's not scrunching up just so the thread lays down next to the twisted chain. Now my thread is coming out of the bottom of the stitch. That was step two of moister stitch. Step three, we're going to make another chain stitch. But this one's going to go around the whole outside of this little braided center that we created. I'm going to take my needle, I'm going to put it down right at the base of the stitch, right underneath everything, and I'm going to bring the needle tip up right at the top edge. Once again, I'll hold that close. My needles going down right at the bottom and up right at the top of that little braided center section. We park the needle there one more time so that I can grab my working thread, the one that's coming out of the fabric again. I'm going to wrap this one going counterclockwise, towards the left. Remember I said we'd remember the left. I want it to wrap a going to my left hand underneath the tip of the needle. Then I'm going to push the needle all the way through. One more time, we're going to pull the sloop just until it cozies up right around the outside edge of the stitch. I don't want to pull it so tight that it slips underneath. I just want it to cozy up around that braided twist. That's a chain stitch going around the outside edge. If you've done chain stitch before to finish off a chain stitch, we're just going to take the working thread and make a tiny little stitch right to the outside edge. I'm just going to go right at the top, right where it's already coming out, and I'm going to the outside of that laps thread. We just lay down, and that's going to be like a little tack down stitch, that's going to hold that outside loop. I just pull that one tight. There is one oyster stitch. We're going to do one more slow. I'm going to start one more. I'm just going to move over a little bit on my fabric. I'm going to bring my needle up. That's going to be the base of my stitch. First, we're going to do a twisted chain. I'm bringing my needle down right next to where it's coming up, and needle tip comes up about a quarter of an inch away. I'm parking the needle there. First twisted chain, my working thread crosses over the needle, and then loops around towards my left hand. Then I push the needle through and pull that just till it rests on the top of the fabric. That was step one. Step two is our little half slip stitch. We're going to slip underneath the left hand tail of our twisted chain just through the end. I'm going to pull that through and just lay that loop down on the left side of the stitch. Makes a little tiny section of braid. Then our final chain stitch, which wraps around the outside edge, I'm going to go down at the base of the stitch, bring my needle tip up right at the top of the stitch. My working thread, I'm again wrapping the thread towards my left hand, counterclockwise around. And then I'm going to push the needle and pull that just until that loop closes up around the stitch. And then one more stitch to the outside. And there is your completed oyster stitch. Feel free to go back and replay that video so that you can work through the stitches as many times as you need so that you can get a little practice. In the next lesson, I'll show you a little bit how to combine oyster stitches with other things and give you some ideas of how you could use these stitches. 4. Variations on the Stitch: Okay, to practice, we were stitching some individual oyster stitches. Now, one of my favorite ways to use this stitch is actually to put oyster stitches sort of end to end. And that makes this kind of beaded border. That you can see an example here in green and then another one in a variegated thread. I love this look, all you have to do for that is stitch some oyster stitches so they go one on top of the other. I've got one stitch here that we did in the last lesson. I'm going to put the next stitch just right on top of this one. When I bring my needle up to start the stitch, I'm going to bring it up just to the left hand side of that little tack down stitch that we did and right at the very top of the last stitch we stitched. That's where I'm going to start my next one. And I complete the oyster stitch then exactly the same way. I'm going to go down and up. I'm going to do a twisted chain and pull through. I'm going to slip underneath that left leg, you got to be a little careful because there's another stitch right in the way there. Pull that one down just so it sits next to it. Do and up at the top and bottom of the stitch. Wrap around. Pull through. There is a second oyster stitch. Helping create a chain, and I might have actually pulled that last chain stitch just a little too tight. There we go. Fixed. There is another oyster stitch stacked up on top of my first one. I finish the second one the same way by making a little tiny stitch, the outside. Then to continue that little beaded border, we just do the same thing we did before. I come up just to the left hand side and I continue my oyster stitches. That's how you can do a chain of oyster stitches one after the other. Now, there's lots of other ways to stitch them. On this example. Here I stitch them all starting kind of going around a circle, and that makes this kind of cool sunflower looking thing, and then you could fill in the center of this with other kinds of stitches. On this example here, I did a little bit of feather stitch and then put oyster stitches right at the end of the little feathers, and so you get kind of a leafy branch looking there. Here I stitched four of them that all started right in the center point, so you get a little like flower, little starburst kind of shape. Here are a couple of other examples of oyster stitches stitched on another kind of branching stitch. So you can use these lots of different ways. So that is it for oyster stitch. I wanted to keep this class really focused in on doing these advanced stitches. But then you can use them in all kinds of different ways for your own projects and kind of incorporate them with all the other stitches that you know. 5. Wrap Up: So don't forget, your project is to make a sample. So try out oyster stitch with some other stitches you know, try making a little oyster chain or even like a little flour. I made with three different oyster stitches here. So do something creative, take a great close up photo and post that in the project section for this class. We'd all love to see how you've used oyster stitch to make some really cool designs. So, I have a regular embroidery group that gets together, and they have a real love hate relationship with the oyster stitch. It's become kind of a joke. I hope you are one of the people that love this stitch, and you had a good time making your sample and happy stitching.