The Continental Stitch

The continental stitch is one of the three possible tent stitches. It is best used for single lines of stitches going in a horizontal or vertical direction or for oddly shaped areas. For pure diagonals, a different stitch is used. If you are stitching an outline of an odd shape, lettering, a single line going straight across or straight up and down, then the continental stitch is the one to use. On the front, the continental stitch covers a single intersection from the bottom left to the upper right. On the back of the work, your thread will cross two threads in one direction and a single thread the other way. If you go down two threads you only go sideways one thread. If you go sideways two, you only cross one vertical. When I work this stitch, I think of the needle coming up at a point ahead of the line of stitching and then diving into the ground "behind" that point to complete a single stitch.

For horizontal lines of continental stitching you will want to follow this diagram. When you need to go from left to right, just turn your work upside-down if you are working in hand. If you are working on a frame, remember to come up with your needle "ahead" of your line of stitching so your thread will cross two canvas threads on the back. If you are stitching an area that is only two or three rows tall, the basketweave stitch may be a better choice.

This is what the back will look like.

If you are working vertical lines of the continental stitch, you use the stitching order shown on the left. It will look like the diagram on the right on the back. If you are stitching an area that is only two or three stitches wide, you may prefer to use the basketweave stitch. It is not considered an error for a stitcher to interchange these two stitches in a project with small areas of color. If your line is actually a curved one, you will find yourself working from top to bottom and right to left with a mix of the horizontal and the vertical stitching order. It all makes sense once you have a needle in your hand. If it just won't work out, try turning your canvas upside-down. If you are using the continental stitch to fill in a large area, you are going to need to turn your work at the end of every row if you are working in hand. If you do not turn, you might think you are producing rows of continental, but what you usually get is every other row in half cross stitch. This looks amazingly bad on both the front and back of the work. You will want to avoid this error or rip out if it does happen.

If the rows are not all the same length, try not to have long thread jumps from one row to another. Either run your thread under a few stitches on the back or make sure that your first few stitches cover the thread you carried on the back of the work. I like to keep my thread jumps below four canvas intersections.

In this diagram the first, top row is worked from right to left. The second row is done after turning the canvas and is worked from right to left. Try turning the paper and you will see. The bottom row is worked in the direction of the bottom arrow. If you forget to turn the canvas, or get confused while stitching in a frame, just check the back of the work. You will be able to spot an error very quickly.

Now that you know how to do the continental stitch, I would like to warn you from using it exclusively for tent stitch on canvas. It will distort the canvas into a diamond shape because of the consistent, strong diagonal on the back. Working in a frame with four way tension or on stretcher bars reduces the distortion some. It is possible to block and stretch your finished work to make it be square, but a badly distorted piece may not come out square no matter how you block the piece. Once you get it square, it may not stay that way. The continental stitch is good for outlines of odd shapes, single horizontal and vertical lines and lettering. I try very hard to avoid using it to fill in solid areas.

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