Autumn Leaves: The Tent Stitch Family (Continental)

CONTINENTAL is stitched this way. (See Threadneedle Street’s diagrams in the link below).

http://www.threadneedlestreet.com/ContinentalHalfCross.html

This stitch (and half-cross) may be stitched in either horizontal or vertical rows. If you stitch it across a horizontal row, you work from right to left, then for the next row, you work from the left toward the starting point on the right, making sure that you come up in a “dirty” hole and go down in an empty one. (A “dirty” hole just means a hole in your needlepoint canvas that already has a stitched thread in it.) To stitch vertically, the first row goes down and then you work you way back up to the right of the first row, making sure the new row’s stitch comes up in a dirty hole from the row you just stitched.

Want to turn your square piece into a parallelogram? Continental is the stitch for you! Look at the back side. You’ll see long slants on the back and the regular tent stitch look on the front. This constant pull in one direction distorts the canvas a lot. There is a lot of thread on both sides of the canvas so continental wears ok, just not as well as basketweave.

But on the other hand, this is the perfect stitch for small areas like the tiny leaves we have in Autumn Leaves. I would not use it for a large area unless my canvas was on a frame, and even then I find my stitch tension is easier to control if I use basketweave. But it works very well in certain situations.


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