If you’ve ever knitted you’ll know that there are really only two stitches, knit and purl, and that all the stitch patterns used in knitting are just combinations of knit and purl.

I see the straight stitch as the embroidery version of knit and purl. It’s just a single stitch of any length and in any direction. So it really is the building block for the majority of other embroidery stitches - running stitch, backstitch, seed stitch, satin stitch and cross stitch to name just a few.

• Creating a straight stitch is easy, bring the needle up through the fabric at the point the stitch will start

• Push it back through the fabric at the point at which you want the stitch to end.

The image in the header shows one way of using straight stitches - to create a flower. But a fun way to use straight stitches is when stitching on paper. This is a card I made for my niece’s birthday using long straight stitches at random angles and overlapping.

Want to try this stitch? It’s one I suggest using in my floral sampler kit.

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