The simplest form of tent stitch, with the fronts looking like ///// and the backs like |||||||||| (subject to character set). I don't like this stitch, but it is OK for pieces which are going to be framed. For a cushion or other piece to be 'used' I don't think it makes a thick enough pad of material. It also tends to distort the finished product, but probably not as much as continental stitch, which we will look at later. It is very difficult to tuck the ends in to Half Cross Stitch. A lot of designers recommend it, but I suspect that they are the ones who don't stitch too much.
The best one for large areas, but I use it as much as possible, even for small areas,
as long as I can manage the counting (I work from charts or else by eye). You start in the
top right hand or bottom left hand corner, and work up and down diagonally like this,
coming up through the odd numbered hole and down through the even one. Note that in the
diagram which follows 1 and 10 are the same hole:
. 8 6 2
7 5 1 4
. 9 3 12
. . 11
and so on. The little graphic hopefully shows this more clearly.
The main advantage of this stitch is that it causes minimal distortion to the canvas, as well as producing a nice fat pad of material. It is very easy to tuck the loose ends in to the pad at the back, but try not to tuck dark colours into light as they will show through.
This is the third form of tent stitch - the most popular for small areas. It's done
like
. 6 4 2 and so on.
5 3 1
When you get to the end you just go back in the opposite direction. As somebody said, the effect of distortion is most severe with this stitch. On the other hand, you get a lovely fat pad of material behind the canvas which is important for wear, and easy to tuck in the loose ends.
Important for some people is the problem that it is impossible to maintain the same tension both left and right going, so that you tend to get stripes on the canvas. It took me ten years to find out what was causing it, and most people don't even notice, but it might bother you. You can see the reason for this stripe in the diagram. When you stitch the first row there is no problem, all stitches go into an empty space. The second row is stitched from full to empty. This will tend to reduce the tension of the full row. When you come to the third row you are stitching from empty into full. This will tend to increase the tension of the full row. This compares with basketweave stitch, where you are stitching into the full hole all of the time.
As I said, I use basketweave now most of the time, even for fairly small areas, unless I can't manage to count the threads diagonally!
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