My long and short
stitch is far from perfect.So, in order to improve on this stitch and to learn
more on needle painting, I did some research on the internet and found an
exciting article on stitch direction for flowers and leaves.Please click here 
to read the article.
to read the article.
Although it stated the need to draw circles,
that’s not necessary.Just find the point of attachment between the flower/leaf
and its stem (point O) and draw straight lines from this point to the outline
of the petal/leaf.These are the directional lines when working the long and short
stitch.
After reading the article, I knew I had to
experiment and find out myself if it really works.My first attempt was to
embroider a simple leaf and the result is what you see in the picture above.I’ll
show you the step by step pictures of this leaf in my next post.
I found
some more great tips from the same website :
*Parallel veined vegetation is the largest
exception.(I’m not really sure what it means but I think for leaves with
parallel veins, you can’t follow the stitch direction rules and the stitch has
to be worked parallel to the veins)
*For turn-over leaf – slant the stitch from the
edge in the direction which would reach the center IF THE LEAF WERE LAID OUT
SMOOTH.
Well, I’ll love to hear from you.How do you
work your long and short stitch?
