Charlotte Mason Hand Sewing Tutorial: Running Back Stitch

Welcome Charlotte Mason homeschoolers! Todays hand sewing tutorial is the running back stitch!

Hand sewing is just as strong as machine sewing! It doesn’t seem possible but it is true. It is a lot of fun and a great way for children to learn the lesson of patience and endurance in finishing a longer project! The rewards are great! Oh and did I mention this can be done family styled for ages 3-18? Pretty cool eh?

Hand sewn sampler. Free tutorials for all the stitches!

Today we will learn about:

  • the different strengths of different hand sewing stitches
  • tips for including younger children in the lesson
  • materials needed for this lesson
  • tutorial for the running back stitch
  • other resources so that your family can learn all the basics of super fun and versatility of this handicraft for all you Charlotte Mason lovers

Let’s begin!

The Different Strengths Of Hand Stitches

Hand sewing is of course slower than machine sewing, but it is also cheaper, and a great way to start many ages of your children all at the same time, for family styled learning.

The back stitch is the strongest hand sewing stitch there is, but it is a slow stitch. (Think super man of the hand sewing hero stitches.) The running stitch is the weakest stitch, but it is the quickest.

Or in other words, the faster the stitch is, the weaker it is, the slower the stitch, the stronger it is.

Another factor to the strength of hand sewing stitches is the size of the stitch. If you make the running stitches smaller then it will strengthen the weaker running stitch. If you enlarge the back stitch, it will weaken it.

Make sense? Good. Now let’s move on to todays tutorial stitch, the “running back stitch”.

Any guesses how strong the running back stitch is? 

It’s in the middle! It is stronger than a running stitch, but less strong than a back stitch, (faster too).

So the super hero of the day is the running back stitch!

Someday you will need this kind of saving that only the super hero stitch, “the running back stitch”, can give you!

Oh goodness dear me, this is getting awfully nerdy, we had better move on to the tips!

Tips For Including Younger Children

Whenever I have taught my littles a handicraft I keep it super simple. I use burlap for them because it has wholes in it, making it easy to follow the line. To make it easy for you to understand the supplies that you need, I created a free Shopping Guide. It tells all that you need for your children to practice the basic hand sewing stitches, for ages 3-18.

Here’s a couple extra quick tips:

  • use yarn with the burlap. It doesn’t matter what size you use, just so long as it can fit into the whole. Again, to make this quick and easy to understand grab my free resource here.
  • for ages 5-7 can follow along with the tutorials using burlap.
  • ages 3-4 can go up and down as they please. This makes them feel very big indeed!

The ages are just what have worked the best for my family, it may be different in your family so please change as needed.

Now we are ready to begin the Charlotte Mason inspired handicraft running back stitch tutorial.

Hand Sewing Lesson Supplies

Thankfully sewing supplies are not expensive and can be purchased at most craft stores. If you would like to have an easy shopping guide to take with you then download mine here!

Today you will need for ages 8 plus:

  • White cotton or board cloth cut in a 10″ by 7″ rectangle
  • Pencil
  • Red or black thread
  • Size ___needle
  • Fabric scissors

Today you will need for ages 3-7:

  • Burlap fabric brown cut 10″ by 5″
  • Bright color yarn
  • Size ______ needle
  • Fabric scissors, (one pair for the whole family is enough)

Don’t forget to grab my freebie, Shopping Guide, so you buy the supplies you need with ease.

Charlotte Mason Hand Sewing Tutorial: Running Back Stitch

Begin by threading and knotting, lesson for this found here.

Using a pencil write the name, “running back stitch” with a line underneath. (see first photo from the blog to see how this looks)

Start from the bottom, come up at the left edge of the line. Go back in, and come up, in and up, 3 or so times with out pulling the needle all the way through.

Now pull all the way through. Go back to meet the last stitch to create a back stitch. The back stitch acts as an anchor for providing more strength.

And that’s it! You can be very flexible in how many running stitches are in-between the back stitches.

As we talked about earlier the smaller the stitches the stronger, the larger the less strong. Also the more back stitches you have, the stronger it will be.

close up of a hand sewing practice sampler

Wrapping This Charlotte Mason Hand Sewing Tutorial: Running Back Stitch Up

Soon your children will be ready for their first hand sewn project. 

  • Learn how to thread, knot, and sew the running stitch, the most basic stitch than click here.
  • Learn the back stitch by clicking here.

Only two more stitches to go before your family knows enough to sew most anything they can dream up.

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