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| Embroidered Snowman Using Chain Stitch |
It has been a couple of years since I embroidered a snowman using the chain stitch. I had a hard time remembering exactly how I did it, so I thought I would make a tutorial to refer back to in the future.
First, I used a quarter (on the bottom), a nickel (for the body), and a dime (for the head) and traced them with light pencil marks on the back of the block.
Starting from the center of a traced circle, I made a triangle with three chain stitches. Then, I continued chain stitching in a circle until it was the desired size.
I used white DMC size 5 thread.
As seen in this photo of the back, my stitched circles ended up slightly off center. However, starting in the center of each circle and chain stitching in the same direction kept all three sections of the snowman lined up.
I ended the chain stitches at the bottom of each circle.
Once the body was stitched, I needed to decide on the face. I wanted this snowman to look up towards the moon on the block.
Using 2 strands of a variegated DMC orange floss, I made a triangle pointing up towards the sky using 3 straight stitches.
Using the same floss, I satin stitched the nose. (I have found my satin stitches are a bit more even if I create an outline to stitch over first.)
Next, I attached size 10/0 black Czech glass seed beads, using a single strand of DMC black (#310) floss, to create eyes and a nose.
For the mouth, I couched 2 strands of the same black floss down using a single strand of black to tack it down.
To be honest, I was nervous about adding a scarf and a hat. Using a single strand of a light blue embroidery floss and back stitches, I created outlines for them both. (I traced the outlines on the back of the block first to use as a guide.)
Using a variegated blue/purple/pink size 5 DMC thread, I satin stitched the hat (starting with the brim) and the scarf.
Next, using the same thread and Turkey Knots, tassles were added to the scarf and a fluffy ball was added to the end of the hat.
Using a variegated brown DMC floss, I removed one strand (of 6) to couch down the remaining 5 strands to make arms for the snowman. Fly stitches were added to make the hands, using the 5 strands of floss.
You may have noticed the tree branches in the photo with the arms. I knew I wanted to add a tree, and decided to make that first so the arms on the snowman would use a brown in the tree.
The tree was created using the Easy, Breezy Trees Tutorial on Kathy Shaw's blog (found here). A variety of threads were used. I cut lengths of Kreinik Metallics Pearl #4 Very Fine Braid, DMC Metallic white/blanc floss (all 6 strands), 2 shades of DMC variegated brown flosses (all 6 strands), and white DMC perle cotton in sizes 8, 5, and 3. I used a single strand of white floss to couch down most of the tree. Some of the brown branches were couched with a single strand of one of the brown variegated flosses.
Thank you for stopping by! If you use this snowman tutorial, I would love to see your creation.
Please note:
1. You may click on a photo to see a larger image.
2. Directions for all of the stitches used for this tutorial (except the straight stitch) may be found in the Stitch Dictionary at Pintangle(dot)com here.
