Hand-Sewing Stitches from

The Sewing Book
by
Anne L. Jessup

1913

practice embroidery from Jessup

Mrs. Jessup suggests simple embroidery as a way to get acquainted with your needle.  I suggest finding a good introduction to embroidery such as Enthoven's Stitches of Creative Embroidery and making a sampler.  You can practice for hours without getting bored, and some of the stitches you learn may be useful.  Even if you do all your embroidery with backstitch, outline, and chain stitch, it's nice to know that you've chosen these simple stitches, rather than using them because you've never heard of any others.

basting illo from Jessup


Running stitch from Jessup

Backstitch from Jessup

Combination Stitch from Jessup

When I put this illo up here, I thought that "combination stitch" was a combination of running stitch and back stitch: our running back stitch. I noticed the lack of gaps in the row of stitches, and thought it was a mistake on the artist's part.

When I finally got a bmp file of sufficient resolution to think of correcting that mistake, I was forced to think about what the needle was doing and realized that this isn't running back stitch at all. It's a combination of running stitch and bar tacks!

Note that the needle comes up exactly where it came up before, making a stitch half as long as would be needed for closed backstitch, goes over one stitch length, then dips and comes up in position to make another bar tack. This does, indeed, look exactly like closed back stitch as the artist drew it. On the back, it would look like a row of two-stitch bar tacks separated by gaps just as long as the bar tacks.



Overhanding from Jessup

Overcasting from Jessup

French seam from Jessup



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