Blanket Stitch Tutorial

The Blanket Stitch is an embroidery stitch that provides a nice edging for blankets, table runners, bibs, burpies, table cloths, appliqued items, and anything else that needs a finished border. It can be embroidered with large stitches, or petite ones, depending on the area that you are edging, making it very versatile for a number of projects.

To Blanket Stitch around the edges of an appliqued section of fabric, simply do the following:

1. Bring the threaded needle up from underneath the fabric (be sure the floss is knotted) to the immediate left of the appliquéd fabric at point A. Pull taut, and hold floss down with your left thumb.


2. With the needle, go back down at point B, and come up again at point C, making sure the needle passes over the top of the floss you are holding with your thumb. Pull taut once again. Repeat.


To Blanket Stitch around the edges of a runner or table cloth, follow the same basic instructions above, but when coming up for the first time, simply bring your needle up at the edge of the fabric (point A). Go back down at point B, then come up from under the fabric at the edge but without catching the fabric in the needle (point C). Again, make sure your needle passes over the top of the extended floss and pull taut. Repeat.



I have a table runner that I stitched and sewed 9 years ago, designed by an incredible embroidery designer, Sandra Workman of Pine Mountain Designs. She is also the owner of Pine Needles of Gardner Village in Utah. She is extremely creative and has a myriad of darling designs that I see everywhere. Anyway...the instructions call for a blanket stitch around the edges of the runner to finish it off (at least as I remember it way back then). Well, for 9 years, I've just displayed this runner without the blanket stitch edging because I've simply not taken the time to finish it, but it has nagged at me all these years.

As I pulled out the runner just the other day to display in my entry way, I decided that this was the year to finish it off. I was tired of being reminded yearly of tasks left unfinished!

My two gals were scheduled for back-to-back haircuts yesterday, and since I can't sit still and be empty-handed for that long anyway, I figured I would make use of the hour I would be waiting there. I grabbed the runner, some floss, a needle, scissors, and away we went!

I finished most of the edging as we all chatted through the haircuts, and I finished the rest of it during my daughter's dance class. What a great feeling to accomplish something in those minutes that could have been wasted by just sitting.

Finally! A finished project just for myself--nothing to sell or give away, and after 9 years, it's finished at last! (Eleventh hour, anyone?)