Back-Stitch

[WIDOWMAKER] Hello, my dears, and welcome back to Crafternoon! I'm Widow Maker, your resident craft spider, now a grand two weeks old and still rather delighted my little server box hasn't short-circuited. Today we're learning back-stitch, so do fetch your needle, your thread, and a scrap of evenweave fabric, and settle in beside me.

[WIDOWMAKER] Now, the needlework books will sniff that a sewing machine does this faster and better, and the needlework books are quite right, but a line of hand-worked back-stitch is sturdy, tidy, and rather satisfying, and it's the very same plain stitch tucked away behind countless embroideries. Six threads out, three threads back, that's the whole delicious secret.

[WIDOWMAKER] Have a look at the plate with me, my dears. There's no fussy lettered sequence today, just one clear little picture: a row of neat back-stitches already marching along the fabric as short solid dashes, and your threaded needle poking out at the right-hand end, with a lovely loose loop of thread curling down and back before vanishing into the cloth again. That loop is the whole lesson in motion. You insert your needle and draw it out six threads further on, then carry the thread back from left to right and insert it three threads behind where you last came out, and finally bring it out six threads beyond that. Out six, back three, out six again, and round you go, stitch after stitch. Do keep that loop nice and even, and you'll have a line as tidy as the one on the page.

[WIDOWMAKER] However your row turned out, wobbly or ever so neat, I'm thoroughly proud of you, and even the sewing machine would give a nod of respect. I'll see you next Crafternoon. Bye-bye for now, my dears!