My current embroidery project is a glasses case. I don’t need my glasses often at all but they still deserve a nice case.

The starting point was a technique I saw posted on Instagram, called stacked running stitch. It looks like satin stitch at first glance, but builds up very differently. Instead of making one branch at a time, the yarn goes all the way across the motif, building up all the branches simultaneously, a millimetre at a time.

Instead of something purely abstract, I did the stitching in the shape of a coral.

It sounded interesting, and was definitely interesting to work with. It took a lot more concentration than I had thought. The running stitches had to be kept straight (probably easier on a fabric with visible threads) or the lines would start to lean or curve. And I also had to think about the branching all the time, to make sure they didn’t run into each other, or all end at the same time, or all split at the same time.

The end result is perhaps technically impressive rather than beautiful. It was an interesting experiment, though. I think it might have worked better for a purely abstract design after all.

The motif on the rear is also a coral, but a quick and simple one in feather stitch. In all its simplicity I think it looks better than the laborious one on the front.