gingham chicken scratch cat patterns free download Design your CHICKEN SCRATCH EMBROIDERY Patterns with these 4 stitches. Chicken scratch embroidery – the name itself is so curious. Nothing to do with real chicken scratches of course. Unless you count the way you do embroidery or someone else judging it so. Mine does, especially when I tangle my threads midway. This chicken scratch, though, is beautiful and evenly done. The uniformity of stitches is part of the charm of this work. Chicken Scratch embroidery is a type of embroidery done on gingham fabric (Chequered fabric). The even squares of the gingham fabric form a pattern of its own for the work. The chicken scratch embroidery can make your finished gingham fabric look like you have added lace on top of it. There are many types of gingham fabric according to the size of the squares – some with small squares, some big, some with slightly oblong shaped squares. You will have to ensure that the gingham fabric you have has perfect squares for this embroidery to work. 4 stitches used in chicken scratch embroidery. 1. Double cross stitch ( Smyrna cross stitch) This is a cross stitch done twice over. 2 Straight running stitch. These stitches are done over the colored squares, leaving the white squares blank. 3 Woven circle stitch. This stitch is done by weaving thread under the running stitches to create the circle, usually on the white squares. 4 Loop stitch. This is another woven stitch with a straight stitch connecting two stitches. What kind of thread is used for chicken scratch embroidery? Usually, ordinary embroidery floss in white is used to do this embroidery. If you have to introduce color make it a darker shade than the fabric . You can use two or three strands of embroidery thread for the cotton gingham cloth. You can add beautiful flower embroidery alongside this work to enhance it in complementary colors. Needle used for chicken scratch work. An ordinary embroidery needle is used for doing running stitches and cross stitch. The loop stitch and woven circle stitch are woven with a blunt needle. Chicken scratch design. This work is usually done as a border embroidery. But you can copy any design to work this embroidery. Broad outlines are used for this work. If you are designing a border design, Start to count the number of squares in the design area. This is necessary before you decide on how you will fill the area. You always need 4 straight stitches meeting around a square for the woven circle stitch. You can design your own chicken scratch for filling a broad outline the following way. Draw the design on a grid paper. Find the center of the design you have and design it so that with every 4 running stitches intersects on a square- usually, this is a white square. But when it is a colored square a different effect is created. Double cross stitches are the first stitches made. This is usually used to make outlines. Mark running stitches. Then the woven circles and then the loop stitches are marked. The running stitches are worked over the colored / white squares. How to do Chicken scratch embroidery – Border design. Place the fabric you have in the hoop. This is important so that you get an even tension to all the stitches. The double cross stitch is worked on alternative squares. Then the running stitch is worked. See that the running stitches intersect around a white square for woven stitches. After this, the woven stitch is done. Loop stitch is done then. This embroidery can be done on fabric other than gingham – they work beautifully as border design for any kind of fabric. Checkout the tutorial for boxy top for more details. How To Embroider on Gingham – Chicken Scratch Tutorial. Today, a little tutorial for embroidery on gingham, or chicken scratch . Chicken scratch is suited to any level of embroiderer, but, due to its simple nature and pleasing results, it’s an especially nice technique for beginners and even for children. You can make up your own patterns for gingham embroidery, or you can look around online for pattern sources or inspiration from vintage aprons, household linens, and so forth. You’ll find two patterns here on Needle ‘n Thread for chicken scratch: Floral Corner #1 and Floral Corner #2, both of which can be used as corner designs, or can be easily adapted for straight edges. Materials & Tools for Chicken Scratch Embroidery. Gingham Fabric: For adults or older youth who have their motor skills under control, any size of gingham will work, from 1/2″ down to 1/16″ micro check fabric. For younger children, 3/16″ and 1/4″ or larger gingham would be easier to handle. Many proficient chicken-scratchers like to use homespun gingham, which has a slightly coarser appearance to it, usually has no discernible front or back, and has more equally “square” checks to it. (Most gingham cotton features slightly rectangular checks.) Homespun is nice for casual table cloths – I always associate it with picnics! Threads: Gauge the threads to the size of the check. On 1/8″ gingham, I use coton a broder #20 in white for the foundation stitches, coton a broder #25 and cotton floche for colored lacing stitches (sometimes using two strands of either, for elements I want to accent), and coton a broder #16 for the white lacing stitches. You can substitute regular cotton floss, too – just try different weights and combinations, to see what works best. Higher numbered (finer) perle cottons (8 and 12) will work well for foundation stitches on 1/8″ gingham. With larger checks, heavier perle cottons (3 and 5) are a good choice for foundation stitches. Tools: You’ll need a hoop, since tensioning the stitches correctly is very important. If your stitches are too loose, they can look floppy (especially on larger checks). If your stitches are too tight, the fabric will pucker. For needles, you’ll want crewel embroidery needles in whatever size works well with the thread you choose, and you’ll also want a tapestry needle that will fit any of the threads you’ll use for the lacing stitches. With the threads I’ve been using on the designs I’ve been showing you, I find a #7 or #8 crewel needle works well for the foundation stitches, and a #26 tapestry needle works fine for the lacing stitches. A pair of scissors is always a good thing to have on hand when doing any kind of embroidery, and for chicken scratch, you’ll also want a pattern, unless you’re just fiddling about for the fun of it. Following the Pattern & Working in the Hoop. I work with a 4″ embroidery hoop on the 1/8″ gingham, and I always work as much of the design as will fit in the hoop before I move the hoop. So I work all the foundation stitches and all the lacing stitches that fit inside the hoop area, before moving the hoop to work another area. I break down my design into sections. So, using this design, I’m going to start in the corner for this tutorial (notice that the corner foundation stitch in the design is on a dark check in the fabric), and break up the sections on the pattern in a way that makes sense to me while I work them out. First, I started with the lower corner area and worked the outline foundation double cross stitches around that small corner (highlighted in the photo above), followed by the inside foundation cross stitches. Then, I moved on to the foundation stitches for the sections highlighted above, because that’s about all that would fit in my hoop. After working all the foundation stitches, I then when back and laced them to make the designs. Working the Foundation Stitches. Begin with an away waste knot, so that you don’t have a knot on the back of your fabric. (If you’re working with children, it’s easier just to let them use a knot on the back. They can graduate to the away waste knot once they’ve gotten their feet wet!) Some chicken scratchers like to work each stitch individually. You can certainly do that, and, on larger gingham checks, I would advise working each foundation stitch completely before moving on to the next one, so that you don’t have a lot of long threads crossing often on the back. But with small checks, I adapt the typical cross stitch method and work the stitches in layers. So, starting from that lower left corner, this is the direction my stitches took, to work the first layer of the double cross stitches. The green dot indicated my starting point, and the black arrows indicate the direction the thread is traveling on the back of the fabric, to make each new half cross stitch. The green arrow indicates where I started the return journey, to cross over the stitches and turn them into cross stitches. When I arrived at the diagonal line, I crossed over every other stitch on the return journey. Here, you can see that the two perpendicular sides of the triangle are complete cross stitches, made on the return journey, while the hypotenuse is crossed on every other stitch. The journeys you make to work out each section of the design are really just common sense. Follow a path that makes sense and that keeps the back of the work as neat as possible, without creating very long stitches on the back of the work while you move from area to area.