Spring Stitch

This is an interesting stitch that probably got its name from the lowly shock absorber on your car, which looks like a big spring. It's a modern stitch, which has a strong diagonal feel when stitched as a filler. It's good for larger areas or backgrounds. It has lots of texture, and it's good for unusual threads or combinations of threads. It's three threads wide and 12 threads tall. Where stitches meet, there are two little oblong cross stitches for filler.

My sample is stitched in Watercolours, and this stitch is a particularly good use of that thread since the long cross stitch underneath the horizontal (spring) stitches pulls the color through and makes it change rapidly. Actually, I rather like doing this stitch in Needle Necessities Spring II, a rayon/cotton blend, because it's kind of cool saying I'm stitching the Spring Stitch in Spring, but that's a personal quirk.

Another good use for this stitch is in single rows as a border or edging. You can work the little compensating stitches in a different thread or leave it open so that the canvas shows for a lacy look.

Use this stitch as foliage in the background in an overdye or as Santa's coat in Velour. It makes a good (but busy) lacy background worked in #8 pearl cotton on 18 count canvas, as well.

Spring Stitch