Hand Embroidered Monograms for Intermediate Stitchers

1. Intro to Hand Embroidered Monograms: Hi, my name is Becca Ron. Welcome to my studio. As an artist, I create work using fabric and paper. I do a lot of fabric design, designing my own fabrics from paper illustrations and hand embroidery. In this class, we are going to learn about stitching monograms. Monograms are basically just stitching a letter. This class is going to focus on embroidered monograms, but you will see monograms out in the world on buildings, in mosaics, in lots of places, anywhere that somebody wanted to sort of put their stamp. So the fun part of this class is you get to design everything about your monogram. I'm going to show you how to source letters, how to transfer them onto fabric. I'm going to teach you three different embroidery stitches, which work great for letters and lettering. And then you get to make your own project, whatever you want to stitch. So let's jump in and stitch some embroidered monograms. 2. Your Project: You project for this class is a pretty simple one. You are just going to stitch a monogram. I have a lot of examples out here of ones we're going to stitch in class in the next few lessons and some that I've made ahead of time. So in the next few lessons, I'm going to walk you through choosing the style of your letter, transferring it onto fabric. There are three hands on lessons to show you three different styles of stitching, so you can pick the right thing to go with the style of letter you want to stitch. And then finally, I've got a whole bunch of inspiration that I'll talk about how they're constructed and so you can choose the style for making your monogram anyway you like. So your assignment is to work with me through the next few lessons, make all of those design decisions, and then stitch your own monogram on any kind of project you want to. I can't wait to see what you design. 3. Tools & Materials: So let's start out talking about the tools and materials you'll need for making monograms. First, you'll need a pair of scissors, something to trim threads with you'll also need a needle to do your embroidery with. Now, these are my favorite kind of needles, and I'll hold one up here close to the screen. This is called a henle needle. Chenil needles have a really sharp point and they have a nice big eye, so it's easy to thread, and I think they are great to stitch with. Now, I have a couple of different sizes here. The size of corresponds to the kind of thread that you want to use, and we'll talk about threads next. But a good rule of thumb is to match the size of your needle to the size of your thread. The two things should be about the same thickness or diameter. I see beginners sometimes grab the largest size needle thinking it will make their stitching easier. I think that's opposite the case that really a smaller needle makes it easier to make some of the kinds of stitches. So you'll need some kind of a needle. Like I said, henle are my favorite. You could also use ones that are labeled embroidery needles. They will also work great. They just have a smaller eye. They're a little bit harder to thread. Okay? Then you need some thread to create your design. Now, a lot of you might be familiar with six stranded embroidery thread, also called cross stitch floss. That works great. It is made up of six individual threads. So you can use as many or as few as you want to when you do your stitching. So you can make thicker lines or thinner lines. This one's a great choice. My favorite is something called pearl cotton, and it comes on little spools like this. They come in different shapes, and it's a thread that's designed to be used just as one piece, so you don't have to separate anything out. These are both the size eight, which is about equivalent to three strands of this stranded embroidery thread. This is my personal favorite to stitch with. I just really like the way the stitches look, and I think it's easier to work with than the six strands that you have to juggle around. Um it isn't quite as easily available. You can usually find it at your local craft store in kind of limited color selection. But many local, independent quilt shops carry it because it's great for doing hand quilting. So you could use Pearl cotton, which is what I'm going to use for all of the examples in this class. This is the same kind of Pearl cotton thread, just a variegated color. Variegated colors are sometimes a really fun way to add multiple colors to your design without having to change threads all the time. So that's another great option. There are lots of other kinds of kind of specialty embroidery threads out there that you could also use that will work great for this. So here's one example. This one is a thread called Eco vita, and it's a wool embroidery thread. So this would be really similar to working with either of the others and would be a great choice. If this is your very first project, I would stay away from any kind of a metallic thread. Those ones tend to be much stiffer and harder to work with, and it will be harder if that's your very first project. So you can work up to those fun metallics. One other optional tool you might decide you need is an embroidery hoop. Now, me personally as a stitcher, I don't always like to use an embroidery hoop, even though they're kind of the standard. So your choice about using an embroidery hoop depends on the kind of fabric that you're going to use. So the thinner your fabric is, the more likely you're going to want one of these to help hold it smooth and tight, and so nothing wrinkles up and you'll get a much better result. But if you choose a thicker fabric, like you were going to embroider on denim or wool felt, which is one of the examples I'll show you, those probably don't need an embroidery hoop as much to be able to keep the fabric sort of out of your way to do your stitch designs. So I always consider embroidery hoops an optional accessory, and you can choose whether or not to use them. I will kind of go back and forth in the examples in this class, so you can see how it looks stitching with one and without one. Alright, so that kind of covers tools. Now, some materials. You need something to stitch on. So I'm going to do some examples on this class just on some plain cotton fabric. This is a cotton muslin. I had some leftover from another project. So that's what I'm going to stitch on. This light color is really nice for working on camera so you guys can see my stitches. But you can stitch on any color you want to. And I have a bunch of examples which I'll show you at the end that are stitched on all kinds of different colors. So a lightweight, kind of quilting cotton or craft cotton would be a great choice for your very first project. You could also use a scrap of other things leftover from another project, make sure that they're kind of in the light or medium weight sort of category. Another great choice is to use some felt fabric. Personally, this is my favorite kind of fabric to stitch on, and I do a lot of stitching on wool felt. These are just two little squares of some wool and rayon blend felt. I will put some of my favorite resources for the felt fabrics and the threads into the handout for this class, so you can download that and see where to get all of these cool materials. But felt is another great option. One of the examples I'll do later in class, I'll stitch on felt so you can just see how that looks. You also could find a ready made something that you could put a monogram on. So this is just like a canvas bag that something I ordered came in, and it's just a plain canvas bag, so I thought it would be a great one to add a monogram, too. Um, you can stitch onto clothing, bags like this, premade handkerchiefs maybe that have been hemmed already. Any of those things are a great thing to use as a canvas to put your monograms on. It's a little trickier working on something like a bag like this because it's got two layers. So I'm going to have to really carefully work to stitch only on one part of it and not accidentally catch the other side. So it makes it a little bit more challenging if you're trying to choose something for your first project. Okay. So that kind of covers the materials. Now, there are a couple other things that are really helpful for doing monograms. Now, a monogram is a letter. So somehow you have to get a letter onto your fabric so that you can stitch over it. Now, you can go as absolutely simple as a pencil, and honestly, I use this method all the time. I print out a letter on paper, and I'm going to show you how to do that in a lesson a little bit later. I hold it up to a window and I trace onto my fabric. It's that simple. Um, and I think that's a great way to kind of get started. It's very low tech. Um, pencil is a good option. Unless you're using a dark colored fabric, then you might have to dig out like a colored pencil. Or this one I got at a quilt conference that I went to. This is a chalk pencil. It works like a mechanical pencil, so it has a little lead in here, and it has three different colors. So there's a white, a pink, and a black that I can choose from. This one is great for transferring things onto darker colored fabrics. So this one is made by se line, and I'll be sure to include that in the resources download for this class. There's another pen which I have had great luck with. These are called friction pens. They're made by pilot and it says right on it erasable. The cool thing about these pens is if you draw on a piece of fabric, you can stitch over it, and then you just have to heat it up and this ink will disappear. You could hit it with an iron or your hair dryer and that will make all of the ink disappear. Now, I have heard some people say that sometimes these inks will come back. Like, it won't disappear permanently. I will kind of come back again, especially if your piece gets really cold. I haven't had that experience, but just, like, to be transparent, I have heard that about some things. So that's a thing to consider. But they come in lots of colors, so it makes it really easy to find one that shows up against the fabric you're stitching. A couple of things I don't recommend, and I wanted to pull these out because I see these show up on Instagram videos all the time is people drawing either with ballpoint pen or Sharpie. There's kind of two problems with both of these. First, ballpoint pen is kind of like a gel, and it can smear, especially if you're putting kind of thick lines onto your fabric. It doesn't wash out. Not always. And so you can end up with your letters, your markings, kind of smearing over your fabric and ruining your design before you ever get started. So I don't love ballpoint pen. Sharpie also has just as part of what makes it a permanent marker, there's some acid in a Sharpie and some kinds of fabric, the acid in the ink can actually just eat through the fabric, and so you'll end up with holes in your piece. So Sharpie also not a great option for this. I wanted to talk about those because I see them come up a lot. Now, one other tool you can use, and I'm going to demonstrate this in one of the lessons a little bit later is there is a product. This one's made by Silky. There are several manufacturers that make it that is called It's a water soluble stabilizer. And this one is self adhesive. So it works like a sticker. You can draw your letters. You can actually put this through the printer and print your letters. Stick it onto your fabric, and then you're going to stitch right through this stabilizer. When you're all done, it washes away. So I'll do a demonstration of that later on in this class, so you can see how that works. This is honestly my favorite tool for doing monograms, and I think you get the cleanest, best results if you use something like this. Now, you don't have to have a printer to be able to use it. You can draw right on this stabilizer with pencil. So you could trace over letters from you know, another source with pencil, you could draw them freehand and still be able to use this even if you don't have a computer printer. Okay, so that kind of takes care of all the tools and materials you'll need for this project. In the next lesson, we're going to talk about how do you get the letters? Monograms are made up of letters, and so how do you get those letters in a place where you can transfer them onto your fabric? 4. Sourcing Letters: Okay, for this lesson, I've actually jumped into Adobe Illustrator to show you how I create the letters to do my monograms. Now, you don't have to have Adobe Illustrator to do this project. Any kind of word processing program that you have that you know how to use is going to do the same things that I'm doing. So the tools might be in slightly different places. They might work slightly different, but you'll get the same idea of how you can create letters so that you're able to stitch them. So I just have opened up a blank document here, and I'm going to put some letters on the screen. So I'm just going to switch over to my text tool. And I'm going to just put ABC. And those are pretty small. Let me make them larger so that you can really see this. And in fact, one trick I want to show you is in my drop down menu, I can only make them 72 points tall. Who even knows how big that is? I actually can type in this box and make them a number of inches or centimeters, if I want to. So instead of 72 points, I'm just going to type in two N for inches, and it's going to make two inch letters. Now, it's switched in the little drop down there that's equivalent to 144 points. You can change all of the units and everything in Illustrator and many other programs, but that's just a quick way to do it if you don't have all of that setup. I've got two inch letters here and I'm just using ABC. Your first thing to do when you're choosing letters to stitch in monograms is you want to think about what kind of a letter you want to stitch. So these ones, and this is just the font that defaulted that came up, these are kind of thick, so it's not a single line. If I were going to stitch this, I would have to have a couple of lines of stitches to make up that letter, which is great. But that's the thing to think about is what sort of letter do you want to embroider? So let's give you an example. If I look at some of the other fonts that I have in my system. I'm going to pick this one called beloved. This, I think is a great example. So this is, I think the easiest kind of font to embroider is if you find one like this that has just a single thin line. So I could use this one just exactly as it is, and I think these are really nice clean letters. So that's one thing to choose. Now, there are lots of narrow fonts like that. So if I keep that one, I'm just going to make a copy of this and we'll choose another one from my list. I'll see if I can find one that looks like a script, maybe I think those are fun. Oh, here we go. There's a great script. In fact, I've used this one that letter B before. So it's a little bit thicker line, but I still could stitch over top of this with kind of one pass of thread. So that's one option to think about. Now, another one is you might want to do a thicker letter, and I'll show some examples of those up on the screen kind of next to me, some stitched examples of these. But if you want to do a thicker letter, then some things to think about are you're going to have to do several passes of thread to somehow make up the thickness of that letter. So here's an example of that. So these are thick, kind of stencil like letters. I've actually stitched this one up as an example, as well. This one, I had to make several passes of a chain stitch, which is one of the ones we're going to learn in this class to be able to fill in that whole block. So in this one, instead of thinking about what the line would be that I'm going to trace over, I'm thinking about filling in these shapes. Both are great options. Okay, so once you've kind of narrowed down the style font that you want, you might want something that looks like a script or an old English, like a calligraphy kind of letter. You might want a basic block. Those are all choices up to you. Once you've made your decision, then you're going to want to arrange them on a sheet like this that you can print out. So this is where I use that trick I showed you with being able to set the size of the font. The next thing I think about is what size? How big do I want this to go on whatever it is that I'm stitching? So, for instance, if I were doing a handkerchief, I might want a smaller letter, and I might make that one only 1 " tall. If I were going to put a letter like on a sweater, I might put it bigger. I might make one that's 3 ". So I can adjust the size of these and print out a whole bunch of different letters and different sizes on the same sheet of paper. So for example, I have another window open. Here are some that I picked out to stitch a sample with just the letter B, since my name is Becca, and I'll put a picture of this sample that I stitched up on the screen next to me. So I did a couple of things with these letters that you'll notice on this big kind of wide script one and on the stencil shaped one down here. I actually created an outline of those, and depending on the program you're in, outline might be one of the choices. The reason I did that is that I wanted to be able to see the outside of the letter to stitch them a little easier. Um, and it gave me the option of being able to leave it open, like I did with the B on the top or to fill it in solid. So that was just a personal choice to be able to see the edges of the letter better, you wouldn't have to put it in outline mode, depending on what makes the most sense for you. So I'm going to make a sheet like this with all of the letters that I want to use as my monograms, all the options, sometimes I do them in several different sizes so I can actually look at it up against the piece that I'm stitching and make a decision. Now, if I'm going to transfer these using one of the marking pens, the chalk pencil or pencil, I can just print this on plain paper. If I'm going to use that water soluble stabilizer, then I can print this directly onto one of those stabilizer sheets. I'm going to print this one both ways, and in the next lesson, I'll show you how to transfer these letters using both of those methods. And just a quick note. If you don't have a computer with a printer and you can't print out and use a graphics program to get letters, you can find letters all kinds of other places. I pulled a couple of things just off of my bookshelf that I think have some great letters. You could always trace over ones like this from a book, from a magazine, from a card, anything like that, to get some kind of a letter that you can use either on paper or on that water soluble stabilizer. Can also draw your own letters freehand. So I recommend making a sketch on paper first and then transferring kind of your finished design onto your fabric, just so you don't have a bunch of extra pencil marks. So don't feel like you have to have a computer, a printer, or any kind of technical skill. You can also find lots of great letters from all kinds of different sources. 5. Transferring to Fabric: Okay, so let's talk about transferring these letters onto your fabric. So I have two versions printed out. This is just on regular copy paper, and this piece is printed on that water soluble stabilizer. Let's talk about the copy paper first. I have a couple of pieces of just this plain muslin fabric. So I can transfer this just by layering it on top and being able to trace through. Now, you can see these pretty easily here just on the camera. So I would be able to just trace around this with a pencil, a chalk pencil or one of those disappearing ink markers. If you have a harder time if your fabric is darker colored or it's thicker, a great way is to just take your printed sheet. I tape it up to one of my windows, and I can't turn my camera around to show you, but I'll take a still photo of that just so you can see the setup that I use. So I tape this with just a little piece of masking tape up to the window. That way, I've got light coming in through the back. You also could use a light box if you have one of those or any kind of something bright behind it. Then I can tape my fabric on top of it. I usually use a couple pieces of masking tape just to keep it smooth and tight and then just trace around it with a pencil, colored pencil, whatever like that. I will do an example of that and just take a still photo that I can show you for that one. So if you're going to use the water soluble stabilizer, you are going to cut this out and stick it on like a sticker. So I'm going to I'm going to do this version right here. I'm just going to kind of roughly cut this out because I don't need all of the extra stabilizer. Okay. It has a paper backing. I'm just going to kind of lift up an edge. And it peels away and it's got just this kind of sticky backing on it. I can stick it now down right to the fabric wherever I need it. Now, you had to be a little bit careful not to get this wet. It will dissolve pretty much right away in water. So make sure that you keep your project dry while you are stitching on it, and you don't want to iron it with the stabilizer on it. It will make a huge mess on your iron if you do that. So kind of stick it down when you're ready to start stitching. And then that's all you have to do to get this piece ready. So we're going to stitch right through the paper as well as the fabric. Now you also can choose to put your fabric into a hoop or not if you want to. So for this example, I'm going to put this into a hoop, I'm going to loosen this up a little bit. There are several different kinds of these hoops, but they kind of all work the same way. I like to put the plain ring on the bottom, kind of center my piece in the center. Then I usually put the ring that tightens it up, whatever mechanism that is kind of to one side. And since I'm right handed, I'm going to stick it over on my left side. I feel like I catch the thread or my cuff or anything else like that less if I kind of try to think about putting it out of the way. So I'm going to roll it over to there. I might need to loosen it just a little bit more. There we go. I'm going to press these two together. I like my fabric to be smooth but not like a drum head. You don't want it so tight that it doesn't have any movement at all. So if I look at it, I want to be able to sort of move the fabric back and forth a little bit. That way, I'm sure I'm not stretching the fabric accidentally so that when I take it out, my piece looks all kind of crumpled or distorted because I had the fabric pulled too tight. So I can give this a little tighten up again, and this would then be ready to stitch. I'm also going to stitch one more example on a piece of felt fabric. So the felt is a little bit harder to do the method where you hold it up to the light just because it's so much thicker. And so I'm going to use the soluble stabilizer for this piece as well. And I think I'm going to choose this kind of stencil shape one. I think this will make a really cute kind of a patch when I get all done with. So I've cut out that stabilizer sheet, and I am going to stick that onto the felt as well. Now, a thing to consider about your felt, I'm using a wool and rayon blend felt. When you get it wet to wash away the stabilizer, it can shrink your felt a little bit. So if you're starting with a piece of felt, you might think about just rinsing it with water. You don't have to wash it thoroughly, but just to give it a rinse and then let it air dry. So if it's going to shrink, it shrinks before you've done your stitching and washing away and not afterwards. In the next three lessons, I'm going to show you three different stitches that you could use to stitch your monograms. So we're going to start with a backstitch, which is what this one is. And we're going to do two variations, a plain backstitch and a whipped back stitch. We're going to do a chain stitch, which is this version that's in purple right here, which is great for filling in thicker letters or creating a thicker outline like this version. And then finally, we're going to talk about a satin stitch, which is this version that you can use to fill in other kind of thick, solid letters. So in those next three lessons, you might want to take a sneak preview, see which one you like best, and then decide which version you want to stitch your monogram in. 6. Option One: Back Stitch: Okay, so the first stitch I'm going to show you is a backstitch. Backstitch is great for doing narrow outlines. So what I'm going to do is this is one of the letters that I transferred onto the fabric. This is just traced with a chalk pencil. This was the one I did up against my window. And I'm going to basically stitch the outline of this letter in backstitch. So I have picked a color. I'm going to grab a piece of thread that is about 14 " long. And if you don't have a ruler nearby, you don't want to measure it, a great way to get the right length of thread is to pinch it between your thumb and your forefinger. Measure back to your elbow, add just a little bit, and that's about the right size thread. Now, you won't have enough to go around your whole letter with just one piece of thread. You will be starting and stopping. Um, I think a lot of beginners often pull off a piece of thread that is super, super long thinking they'll make it easier on themselves. And really, the longer your thread is, the more it's just going to get twisted up on itself and tied in knots. And so you'll spend a lot of time untying your thread when you could be stitching. So I've cut my piece, I'm going to thread my needle. There are lots of methods for threading needles, but I'll kind of show you the way I usually do it, which is to pinch the thread down against the tip of my finger. I just kind of holding it with my thumbnail. And I'm going to bring the needle to the thread. So instead of trying to bring the thread to the needle, I kind of go the opposite way. So I'm bringing the needle over and then I'm just trying to slide the eye of the needle over the end of that thread. And this is where the needles with a bigger eye are really helpful. Nope, didn't do. Okay. There we go. You also can use needle threaders. They're all kinds of helper devices, but you want to get your needle threaded, pull a little tail through the eye of the needle. So you've got just a little bit there. We're not going to double this thread up, and then I'm going to tie a knot in the opposite end of the thread. So not where the needle is, but on the opposite end, I'm going to do just an overhand knot, and that's a really simple one where I just take the end of the thread, I make a loop around my finger. I'm just holding it with my thumbnail. I'm going to take the end of the thread, and I'm going to go under the loop and back up through the middle. I bend that end down underneath and then back up through the middle and that just ties one simple knot. That should be plenty for what we're doing. If you're stitching on a fabric that's really open, very loose, like a knit sweater or something like that, you might need additional knots to help keep it from pulling through. Okay, we've got our needle ready to go. We can start anywhere on this letter. I like to start on a section if there is one that's kind of a straight line because I think it's the easiest kind of to get started with a stitch. So I'm going to start down in this corner right here of the B because that seems like a great place. And I'm going to start stitching up this kind of straight line. So I'm going to bring my needle from the back to the front. Right on top of that line. So this chalk pencil that I used here also will disappear with heat. So when I get all done with this, I can take my hair dryer or an iron and these lines will disappear. But I can stitch right on top of them, and probably they'll mostly disappear anyway. Alright, once I brought my needle through, I'm going to pull it all the way through until it stops at the knot. So I always start my backstitch with one stitch going forwards that kind of is a setup stitch, and it's setting up the size of your stitches. Now, there's no rule about how big you make your back stitches. You just want to be consistent. So you're trying to make them the same size every time. So I'm going to make my stitch about an eighth of an inch long. So that's about that long. And I'm just going that far down the line. Straight ahead, and I'm just going to pull this one through. So this very first stitch is just kind of a basic one little stitch. Now, for all the rest of them, this is where backstitch gets its name is I'm actually going to go ahead on the line, and I'm coming from the back because my needle is on the back of the fabric right now. So I'm going to go one stitch length ahead. So I'm leaving a little gap. I'm going to pull that through. Then I finish my stitch by going back into the same hole that the last stitch left off. That is right there. So it's meeting up going backwards with the last stitch. I'm going to pull that through. There are now two back stitches. Now, some things you'll notice. I'm hanging on to the hoop. I have my fingers in the back here that are helping me guide the needle. With some practice, you get where you don't stab yourself. In the fingers, when you have your fingers on the back, you just learn, but it helps me feel where the needle and the thread are and where I need to come through to the front side. That's a thing I have learned to do is just let my left hand help me and then my right hand is doing all the stitching. All right, next stitch, I'm going to go ahead on the line. Leaving that little gap that's a stitch length along. I'm going to pull through, and then I go back into the same hole as the previous stitch. Okay. Just go to keep going that way. Ahead and then back. And I'm just following that pencil line that I made. Head and then back. I Okay. Backstitch is really easy to go around curves, so I'm just going to keep stitching and go right around the top of that section here on the B. I've got one more stitch that'll take me to that corner. Then I'm going to keep going around. I like to turn my work. I always like to kind of stitch away from me. I find it helpful to just give it a little turn. Coming back this direction. Give it another little turn. Oh, there's where it caught. It always catches on that. You just have to watch. I'm going to keep stitching until I run out of thread. I'm going to keep going around to the line. When I am down to about 3 " of thread, I'm going to come back. I'm just going to speed up the video in the meantime. I'll come back and show you how to tie a knot. Okay, when you are starting to get about this much thread left, just about two or 3 ", you want to stop and tie a knot. Please do not keep stitching until you're absolutely at the end of your thread. You'll have a really hard time tying it off. Okay, so I'm going to finish this stitch by stitching back into that same hole. I brought my thread to the backside. Now, in a thinner fabric like this, we want to take a little care that we're not making this knot show from the front side, so I can't just, like, make a stitch into the back of the fabric here because it will show. So what we're actually going to do is tie the knot basically onto the back of one of the previous stitches. So I'm going to look at where my threads coming out of the fabric, and it's right here by that kind of extra on the back of this previous stitch. So I'm just going to take my needle and I'm going to slip through that last stitch. So I'm just flipping underneath it. I'm going to pull that until I have just a little loop of thread left. I'm not closing it up completely, but you can see here I've got just this little loop. And now I'm going to make two twists of the thread. I'm basically going to take my needle and I'm going to go through that loop. I'm just going from right to left, through the loop once, and then I'm going to do exactly the same thing a second time. I'm going to go through the loop again a second time. Now I've put two twists of thread into that little loop. I made it on the back. Then I'm going to set this down on the table. I'm going to take my left hand and I'm just going to put a finger on either side of that loop of thread, and I'm pressing it down into the table. Okay? So I'm holding it kind of stable. Then I can take my hand that's got the needle in it, and I'm just going to pull straight up. And what happens is, that's going to pull a knot right down against the back of the fabric. The reason I'm holding it down onto the table is if I do that up in the air, it's just going to pull my stitches out, and sometimes it'll pull them right through the fabric. So that's why I'm using the table to help kind of stabilize that knot. Then I can trim off end. I like to leave kind of long tails. I don't want them to accidentally pull out, especially if something is going to get used or worn or washed, anything like that. Alright, I can start my very next stitch the same way we started at the first. So I'm going to grab just another piece of thread, and I'm going to start stitching just the very next stitch and line and keep going. So I'm going to grab another piece of thread. I'm going to stitch all the way around the outline of this B. I'm just going to speed up the video so you can watch me do it while you're stitching along, and I'll meet back when we get kind of to the end of this letter. Okay, so there is my letter B, all outlined in backstitch. This could be a complete monogram and I could stop with it stitched right here. But I wanted to show you one variation on the backstitch, which I think is a really fun addition to this stitch. I'm going to swap over to a contrasting color and I have this brighter green here, which I think will look really nice. I'm going to grab a piece of this thread, what we're going to do this is called a Whip backstitch. So you start out with a foundation of backstitch, just like we did, and we're going to add a second color on top of this to kind of add a decorative element to this. So what happens is it's going to kind of make your outline that you've created look a little smoother first because we are going to basically put a thread twisting around all of the stitches. But it also when you do it with a contrasting color, adds a kind of fun like a candy cane stripe to your outline. So here's how we start this one. I've got a contrasting color, and I'm going to bring my thread up basically in the same place where I started the whole B to start with. So I'm going to come up at the same corner. So I'm just bringing my needle up kind of almost in the same hole, and I'm going to pull through until it stops at the knot. The rest of the stitches, we're not actually going to stitch through the fabric again. We're just going to twist the thread around the stitches that are already there. So here's what I mean. So for this, I'm actually going to flip my needle around. Instead of using the sharp point, I'm actually going to do this with the eye of the needle. The reason I do that is I want it just to kind of slide underneath the stitch and I don't want to catch on the threads or accidentally split one or something. So I'm going to use the eye of the needle. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go underneath that very first stitch that I stitched, and I'm just going kind of from left to right, and I'm sliding my needle under the stitch and pulling it through. And that's going to make a little twist of thread around that stitch. I'm just going to keep doing that in every stitch going the same way, from left to right every time. Next stitch, the second one, I'm going from left to right, underneath the stitch, and I'm going to pull. I want to pull just so that the thread lays down flat and it's not puckering anything up or anything like that. I'm going to do a couple more and then I'm going to hold it up close to the camera. Again, through the next stitch from left to right, I'm just going underneath it. Pulling it through. Go underneath. Pull through. And I'm going to hold this up close to the camera, and you can see it's starting to do that kind of candy cane or barber pole stripe. I'm just going to continue doing that around my entire shape is sliding underneath those stitches. And I'll speed up the camera and then we'll meet back and look at the finished result. A Once I finish my last stitch in a section, I've slipped underneath the last one. Then the last step is to basically just bring my needle to the back again. So right next to the stitch and then I'm going to tie a knot on the back. And I've got one more little section right here of my outline that I'll do that whipped section on. Okay, so now you've seen a backstitch and a whipped backstitch. So if you stitch the whipped part of this stitch with the same color as your initial backstitch, it makes kind of a raised rope like texture that also looks really amazing. And then, of course, if you use a contrasting color like this, you get that kind of variegated candy cane stripe. Now, I picked a really strong contrast for mine so that you see that twistiness a lot. You could also pick a much more subtle contrast and get kind of a subtler look to this. All right, so that's one option for stitching your monogram. 7. Option Two: Chain Stitch: Now I'm going to show you the chain stitch. I'm going to stitch this version on the water soluble stabilizer piece that we prepared earlier in another lesson. This one, I'm going to grab another piece of thread and work the same way to set it up. I'm going to thread my needle and tie a knot. So this version we're going to do with chain stitch. So chain stitch makes a little bit thicker line than a backstitch does. So back stitch is kind of the thinnest version. A chain stitch, basically the stitches look like a little teardrop shape, and so there's two thicknesses of thread that kind of sit side by side. So it makes a thicker line. So if you have a little bit thicker letter like this, chain stitch could work great. So we're going to start. I'm going to start up here on the top of this B. It's all kind of one continuous line, so I'm going to stitch it that way. And I'm going to bring my needle up kind of down the center of this line. Because I want to stitch down the middle of this thicker line. So I'm going to bring my needle up and you'll see that I'm stitching right through the fabric and that water soluble stabilizer at the same time. So it makes it just a little bit thicker. It's a little harder to push your needle through, not too much. If you live in a place that's very humid or wet, sometimes it can start to make your needle a little bit sticky. Um, and what I usually do is if my needle is getting sticky, I just keep a damp paper towel or a washcloth on my table next to me, and I just wipe off the needle once in a while so that that stickiness doesn't build up. It will pull a little bit of stickiness from the stabilizer if you live in a very humid place. All right, for chain stitch, we are going to do two steps for each stitch. So the first step, we're going to put the needle in place and do what I call park it. We're going to park it there, let it sit. We're then going to move the thread so that it's in the right place, and then we're going to pull the stitch through. Okay? So I'm going to do these slow a little bit because you need to kind of do both steps along with me. So first thing, we're going to park the needle. I'm going to bring my needle down right next to almost exactly in the same hole as my thread is coming up. And before I pull it through, I'm actually going to tip the needle back up, and I'm going to bring the tip of it back up through the fabric the length I want my very first stitch. So I'm going to make these about the same size as the back stitches I did. That's about an eighth of an inch. And this is where it's really helpful to have a little bit of flexibility in your fabric because you're going to need to move it around a little bit to be able to do that down up motion with the needle. I've got my needle just taking a bite out of the fabric. That's the length my stitch is going to be, and I'm going to park the needle there. I'm going to just leave it alone. I'm not going to pull it through. Now I grab my working thread, the one that's coming out of the fabric, and I'm going to wrap around the back of the needle from left to right. I'm just hooking the thread underneath the back of the needle. From left to right. Once I've done that little wrap movement, now I can push the needle all the way through. You'll see as I start to pull this up closed, I have a loop of thread and my thread now, my working thread is coming out of the middle. I'm going to pull pull pull pull until I have a little teardrop shaped loop that is sitting right down on the surface of the fabric. That is one chain stitch. I've seen people stitch this stitch in many different ways. There are lots of different ways to do it. There's a reverse chain stitch that you can go the other way. This is the way I like to stitch chain stitch. All right. Your second stitch, you're going to do the same way. You're going to start by going down inside that first loop right next to where the threads coming out of the fabric. So I'm bringing my needle down right there inside the loop. I'm going to do that same motion where I go down, and then I pop the tip of the needle up the length of my stitch. I got a little gap there. I park the needle here and I'm wrapping my thread from left to right underneath, and I'm pulling through. There are two little chain stitches, and you can see how they're a little bit thicker. They are pretty much covering up that thicker line that we have on the stabilizer. I'll keep doing a couple more slow. I like to take the thread and just hold it out of the way while I put my needle in place. I'm going down inside the loop. And up wrapping the thread from left to right. Pull through. Until it lays down on the surface of the fabric, we don't want this to pucker up or fold the fabric when we pull that loop tight. You also want it to stay open just a little bit. If you pull it really, really tight, it'll close up, and I still want to see that teardrop shape. We'll do a few more stitches slow down inside the loop of the previous stitch, then up. Here's a couple of things I'm doing. My fingers on my left hand are underneath. I'm using my middle finger to push the fabric up, which helps me get the needle through to park it. I'm pinching the fabric between my thumb and my middle finger back there, that's helping me make that down up movement with the needle. Then I'm wrapping the thread around and pulling through. Always think of this stitch as two steps. You don't want to forget to do that wrap part once you've parked it. So down into the fabric, I moved my fingers out of the way so I did not stab myself. And then I'm pushing on kind of the needle with my finger underneath to help me bring that to the front. Wrapping left to right, pulling through. Okay. I can see my stabilizer is just coming unstuck a little bit. That's no problem. I can just stick it back down. Okay, a couple more stitches, and then I'm just going to speed up as I kind of stitch the rest of this letter. Down up, wrap. Pull. Down up, wrap, pull through. I Down up. Yep. Pull through. If you've chosen to use six stranded embroidery flass and you're trying to use all six strands, this might be more challenging. That's a lot of thickness to get through the fabric and the stabilizer both. That might be a thing to consider is to use a thinner thread for this one. So I'm coming up to a section here where the letter in criss crosses over each other. I'm going to do the same thing with my stitches. I'm actually going to just keep stitching and I'm going to cross right over that first section that I made there. Okay My next stitch is going to come up just on one side of that. Then I'm just going to stitch right over that line of stitches from before. I could start and stop it if I wanted to, but I like the way it looks when it crosses over. I'm going to keep stitching. I'm just going to speed up the video as I go around. There's kind of a design choice to make on this style of letter. Now, I can keep going with my chain stitch all the way down to the bottom here, and then I can make a choice. I can either turn around and come back up and have another line of stitches, so it's just one continuous line, or I could end my line of stitches here and then pick up again kind of up at the top edge and continue. I think I'm going to do mine in two pieces. So I'm going to stitch down to here and stop because I don't want it to get extra thick right here, and then I'll start again to do this last section. A Okay, I've gotten to the bottom where I want to end a line on this one. So when I am ready to stop, I do my last stitch. My thread is coming out of the center of that stitch. To finish this one off so that it is a complete stitch, I'm actually going to make one more tiny little stitch just to the outside of the loop. So right across from where the thread is coming out of the fabric, I'm just going to the outside of that last loop and making a little stitch down. When I pull that through, it's just going to make a tiny little tack down stitch on that very last one. Now I can tie it off on the back. The knot works the same way as we were doing with the backstitch. I'm going to make a little slip underneath that last one, go through my loop twice, pull that tight. I'm going to pick up a new piece of thread and I'm just going to start my chain stitches again about there and work the same way till the end of this B. I will speed up the video so you can just watch as I stitch along, and then we will talk again when I get done with the chain stitches. So I ran out a thread just a couple of stitches from the end. So if you need to add more thread in when you're doing a chain stitch, you just need to make that little tack down stitch, like we talked about back here that we want to stop the end of a stitch with. And when you start your very next chain stitch, you're just going to come up through the center of this last stitch that you made. And that'll just make that join of the thread completely invisible. So I'm going to bring my first just stitch up through the center of that that previous loop we had. Now I just keep chain stitching like I was before and that will just hide that last little tack down stitch and you can continue with your stitching. Of course, I had to run out of thread like two stitches from the end. That's when it always happens, right? Okay. There's my last stitch. I'm going to do that last little tack down stitch again to the outside of the loop. I'm going to pull this through and tie a knot again on the back. So chain stitch gives a really kind of fun retro vintage look to monograms. They used to be very commonly chain stitch embroidery machines, which is what they used to do name tags on uniforms or monograms, those kind of thing. So anytime I see a chain stitch version of a monogram, it always, for me, has that kind of retro feel. So there's our finished chain stitch. Now, if you want a little bit of fun, you also can do that same whipped version that we did to the backstitch, only you can do it to a chain. So this version, this large B that I did here, I whipped over top of each of the chain stitches in the same color. You can see how it gives it a really raised thick. It almost looks like a rope sticking up off the edge, and you stitch it the same way that you did the whipped back stitch. You'll come up and slip underneath each of the chain stitches instead of each backstitch. There's another variation you can think about that you could add to your monogram design. Now, we will talk in a later lesson about how you wash away this stabilizer, but for now, we'll call this one finished. That's the second variation for doing your stitching. In the next lesson, we're going to talk about satin stitch. 8. Option Three: Satin Stitch: Okay, for our last variation, we are going to stitch this kind of stencil shaped letter in a satin stitch. And I'm working on felt fabric this time, so I don't have a hoop, but also using the water soluble stabilizer on this one. It works great on many different kinds of fabrics. So I'm going to stitch the satin stitch in this kind of dark teal color. Grab a piece, thread my needle and tie a knot, just like I started the other two stitches. Satin stitch is used to fill in areas. So for this one, you want to use a shape, kind of a letter shape that has like big areas that you need to fill in with color. So for example, this version here, the back and kind of the front sections of the B are done in satin stitch. So it's used to kind of make blocks of color. So the first choice you have to make in stitching satin stitch is what direction your stitches are going to go. Because basically, you're going to lay down a bunch of stitches that are right next to each other, almost as close as they can get, and they're either going horizontally or vertically, or I guess you could pick to go on a diagonal. Um, for this B, I don't want to make stitches that are this long that go all the way from the top to the bottom because I'm just going to have a lot of, like, loose threads. So I'm going to do all my satin stitches on this one going horizontally. I'm going to start on the rectangular section first, and I'm going to bring my needle up just at this corner down here. So I'm coming from the back to the front. And I'm going to pull through until it stops at the knot. So our first stitch of satin stitch, I'm just going to stitch straight across. I'm going to make one big stitch. I'm going over to the other corner and I'm just pulling it through. Again, we're just pulling it until the thread lays nicely down on the fabric. It's not puckering up and it's not making the fabric bend. Satin stitch seems really easy, and I think it's actually one of the harder stitches to stitch because it takes a lot of practice to get it really consistent. What you're going to do is your next stitch is going to work exactly the same as the first one, but you want it to be as close up against it as you can get. If you can imagine, you're going to bring your needle up like half the width of your thread to the left side, right like that. It's as close as I can get to that other thread without overlapping it. I'm going to pull through. Then again, I'm going to bring my stitch down as close as I can get to that previous stitch without overlapping it and pull through. Our goal is to get them to just rest right up against each other with no gaps in between. I think this is really hard to do. We keep stitching exactly like that. I'm going to come back over here to this side. I'm bringing my needle up right next to that previous stitch. Then I'm going straight across. I I'm pulling through. And that's all there is to satin stitch. We're just going to keep stitching and fill in this entire shape going that same way, making the stitches the same way. I think that the trick to satin stitch is to just kind of go slow and steady. It is really important where you place your needle on satin stitch so that you don't get kind of a wobbly edge as you go. And if you notice gaps between your stitches, I think it's best to pull it out and try again than to try and, like, work backwards and fill in a gap or something. Okay. I'm just trying to make it look as solid and consistent as I can. I want to pay attention since I don't have a hoop holding this tight, that I'm not pulling so tight on the fabric that I'm puckering this up. I don't want it to fold up on itself. I can see a tiny little gap at the top edge of that one. I'm not going to pull that stitch out. I think when I put my next stitch in, it's going to push it over. Okay, I'm going to stitch the rest of this rectangle, just let the video sped up, and then we're going to talk some techniques for doing these curved sections. Okay. Wow, it takes a lot of stitches to do a satin stitch. So I finished the rectangular part of this, and now I'm working on these curved sections. And so the curves work the same way. I'm trying to make the lines parallel and also matching the direction I did the lines on this section. And so my stitches are starting on this line here, the same every time. But I'm following the curve around. So each of my stitches is getting longer kind of more towards the center of the curve that I get. So I'm going to finish up stitching these two sections of the B with satin stitch and then we'll meet back to talk about a couple of variations you can do. A there's the satin stitched B. This could be complete also. But there's one other variation which I like to do with satin stitch, which is to combine a satin stitch with a backstitch. That's what's going on in this one here is after I finished satin stitching, then I went around the outside edge and just outlined it in backstitch. Especially if your edges are a little wobbly, it gives it kind of a more finished look. And since this B had a couple of really thin sections and this little curly cue, the backstitch was great for those as well. So that's kind of a fun combination since you already know those two stitches. In the next lesson, I'm going to show you a whole bunch of examples. So hopefully you can get some inspiration for your project of making your own monogram for this class. 9. Get Project Inspiration: Okay, so let's talk about a few variations on what we have learned, the different stitches and how you could combine them together. So let's talk through how each of these are stitched. So whipped back stitch in two pretty close together colors of green. This is a plain backstitch. This is a whipped chain stitch and just a little bit of backstitch to kind of accent this one. This is satin stitch, outlined in backstitch. This one is just chain stitches. Lots of rows of them next to each other. And then a plain chain stitch just like we did with the other B, that's the style. And then for fun, I wanted to show you some other examples that I've made for other classes and other kinds of projects. Here's a handkerchief. I just bought the handkerchief already made, but it has a whipped backstitch B, and then I put just a little flower on the end of it. Something kind of fun and silly. This one I stitched on kind of all the corners, so there are lots of different examples. So here's again, a whipped backstitch making the A. It's hard to see on camera. It's actually done in blue and purple thread, but you don't see that candy striping very much. And then I stitch just a little flower vine over the top of it. This version is a chain stitch with a backstitch down the middle of it. So I took both the chain, started with chain stitch and then back stitched right down the center of the chain stitch. So the chain is in pink and the backstitch is in green. So that gives it kind of a fun, I don't know, braided sort of look. We have another whipped chain stitch or sorry, whipped backstitch for that version, a really simple B, and then there's a kind of scripty R again in that whipped back stitch. And then if you want to branch out, of course, there are lots of other ways that you can stitch letters and monograms. I love this piece, which I did as the title for another class that I taught. These are just stitched in backstitch, and I'm using the needle to make the eye, which is fun. I was just a silly piece. These two were ones I did for a class. This is done with a technique called couching. That's a thick cord that we made a handmade cord and couched it down. So that's another kind of stitch you can use. This one I don't remember the name of the stitch that makes this little lattice. I think it's a knotted diamond stitch. But it was a great way to make the back of a letter B. It's a whipped chain stitch here around the front of it, and then just some little vines that go up through it. That's just stitch it on a piece of felt. This tiny little monogram piece I made a long time ago. It's a little hard to see, but this one is actually stitched with silk thread on silk, and you can see it's a very tiny little example and has a little peacock feather behind it. That's all done with satin stitch and chain stitch or backstitch, I think, satin stitch and backstitch. Um I have no idea what it's for, but I made it a zillion years ago and it was a fun little example of another monogram. So hopefully, out of that, you got some ideas of what you want to monogram. So your project for this class is to stitch one. You need to come up with what letter or letters you're going to stitch. Figure out what kind of a font you want to use or where you're going to source your letter style. Find one of the ways to transfer the letter onto your fabric, whether you use a pencil, a chalk pencil, the water soluble stabilizer, and then do your stitching. You got to pick a stitch style and color and do your stitching. So in the next lesson, we're going to talk finishing, how we remove the stabilizer and a few other things to just finish up your monograms so they look awesome. 10. Finishing: Okay, a few finishing techniques. So I've got kind of two different ways to finish the two different ways that we looked at stitching. So this first piece was just drawn on with the chalk pencil. Um, I can see the impression from where the embroidery hoop was. So to get rid of that, I want to press this. Now, the best way to press any kind of embroidered piece like this is to grab a terry cloth bath towel. It could be a hand towel or washcloth, but you want terry cloth because it's got a lot of sort of cushion, it's fluffy, and you're going to take your embroidered piece and flip it upside down on top of that terry cloth towel. And then you can press from the backside. And what happens is the terry cloth has a little bit of give to it, and so your stitches won't get smushed down. When you press the iron down, they're just gonna sink into that terry cloth. So it'll keep your piece from getting kind of flattened looking. Alright? So you can press the back of this. That will get rid of that crinkle from the embroidery hoop. It will also make that chalk pencil or the friction pens. If you used one of those, it'll make those things disappear. Okay, so that's a great finishing for this piece. For the ones with the water soluble stabilizer, the specific instructions are read the package of the stabilizer that you have. They all are slightly different. And so just make sure you read the instructions on that package. In general, what you do is take these pieces when they're finished and you submerge them in just a dish of water. Cold water, I think, works best and just let it sit for it depends on the kind of stabilizer. A half an hour to an hour, it could be even longer. And what will happen is that this paper kind of sticker will dissolve away, just kind of um, melts, crumbles up, and kind of floats away. And then you can rinse it under some running tap water. Be gentle. If you're stitching on wool, of course. You don't want the wool to shrink. That goes for wool fabric or if you've stitched with wool thread that we talked about at the very beginning, make sure that you're using cold water and not shrinking whatever your finished piece is. Once those are done with rinsing away the stabilizer, then you can just let them air dry. I like to put them on a tea towel just kind of by a sunny window and let them air dry. And then if you need to, you can press it the same way we did this one just by flipping it over and pressing from the back side. That's about it to finish your monogrammed pieces. If you are putting a monogram on something like a denim jacket, for instance, I like to iron a little piece of fusible interfacing to the back once everything is all completely finished. And what that's going to do is just kind of trap all of the ends of thread and kind of give it a little bit of stability so that nothing pulls out or gets loose as you're wearing it. If you're doing smaller pieces for different things, that isn't as essential, but it's especially good on wearable pieces if you're gonna wear your monogram. So once you're all finished, be sure to take a picture of your finished monogram project and post it in the project section for this class. We all are really excited to see not only what you stitched on, but I want to see what colors, what stitch style, what kind of a font you chose, because I think everybody's going to do something a little different. So I have a plan for this bee that I stitched with all of that satin stitching. So I'm going to go finish this project up. I'm going to take a picture, and I'm going to post it in the project section for this class, too. Thanks for joining me for these embroidered monograms. I hope you had a great time stitching, and be sure to check out the rest of my classes and come back and join me again soon.