Stitch tension is the thing that most people told me they needed help with when I was writing my book Hardanger Filling Stitches. If you’re one of those people, page 42 is the page for you – it’s all about tension! The image above illustrates the difference poor and good tension can make. Good tension makes your work sing!
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I have Facebook, Instagram and TikTok pages/accounts. The TikTok one is very new.
If you follow me on any of those platforms, something you may have noticed recently is that I’m creating more reels (videos). When I do this, sometimes I also try to provide the same information in an image post as well, particularly here, as I don’t post the reels here. Some people like reels, some people like images. Sometimes I’ll do one and not the other, and sometimes I’ll try to provide both.
Today, you get the image version of yesterday’s reel: it’s about stitch tension in Hardanger. This just shows the “too loose” and “just right” versions. The reel also had “uneven” and “too tight”. If you haven’t seen it, check my Instagram/Facebook/TikTok page for it.
White Threads is the blog of Yvette Stanton, the author, designer, publisher behind Vetty Creations' quality needlework books and embroidery products.
Stitch tension is a real bugbear at times, isn’t it!
Oh yes it is. When I asked in FB groups while researching the book, apart from specific stitches, tension was what people most wanted help with.
After doing cross stitch, embroidery, and crewel where putting much tension on the thread is a no-no, it was hard to get used to pulling the thread tighter to make bars and eyelets in hardanger. At least it was for me.
Thanks for sharing this, Gail. I guess it’s just a matter of learning to adapt to the embroidery style itself. If you can learn to NOT put tension on your thread for those other embroideries, you can learn TO put tension on your thread for Hardanger – it is pulled thread embroidery, after all! 🙂