Easy Handicraft Lesson Whip Stitch Tutorial

Are you in need of an easy handicraft lesson? Then you have come to the right place!

You may think that to hand sew you must learn an enormous amount of stitches to have hand sewing be of any worth. This is not the case. You can pretty much sew anything your heart could desire with only 5 stitches! Amazing right?

Today we are learning the last of the 5 stitches, the whip stitch. For the other fours stitches click on the links below and follow along with your family!

• Lesson 1, threading, knotting, and the running stitch
• Lesson 2, back stitch
• Lesson 3 running back stitch
• Lesson 4 blanket stitch

These tutorials can easily be used for your Charlotte Mason inspired handicraft hand sewing lessons. To buy the materials that you will need for these lessons simply follow my free shopping guide that you can get for free right here.

Whip Stitch To Join To Pieces Together

When you are sewing two pieces of fabric like felt together, and you don’t know how to sew, you just might come up with the whip stitch all on your own. I did!

When I was a little girl I used the whip stitch to sew two pieces of felt together to make a purse. I convinced that I had created a new stitch all by my little self and the pride over my accomplishment swelled within my awesome self. Years later I learned that I was not the creator of the whip stitch, but dear readers don’t fear, for this young girls pride did not burst and make a mess all over the floor, for I took solace in the fact that I did create it after all because I had not known it existed and so it still counted!

I laugh now, but it really is an intuitive stitch!

The whip stitch can be used in knitting two pieces together, using the same technique as sewing two fabric pieces together. You can ask, ” but how do I whip stitch two crochet pieces together?” Well I am happy to say it’s the same technique!

If the whip stitch was not cool enough you can even use it with cross stitch and embroidery to keep edges from fraying! Once you learn multiple handicrafts it is quite amazing how similar they can be.

What Is A Whip Stitch Used For In Sewing?

But this is not all that a whip stitch can do! We go back to hand sewing to learn that it can be used for hems and sewing on something to your fabric like a pocket or lace.

Wow right? The whip stitch is like an appliance that can, need dough, bake the bread, make the butter, spread it for you, and serve you at meal times! Okay maybe not, but you do get a lot of uses out of just one stitch. 😉

I don’t know what it is about the whip stitch, but it is one of my go to’s for hems. There is something satisfying about it and it goes at a pretty good pace.

Ready to try it for yourself? Then lets get started!

Whip Stitch Hem Tutorial

To start, knot and thread your needle. I have a tutorial for this right here.

Draw the words, “Whip stitch” in pencil so your children can learn on their own hand sewing sampler.

Go to the bottom and fold roughly a 1/2 inch up. Then one more time so that the edge is close to the words, “Whip stitch”.

Now we come up with the needle form underneath the fabric. We go down at a diagonal below where you came up but don’t go all the way! Use the photos below as a guide. (Think candy cane or barber pole.)

Still using the photos as your guide in where to put your needle, come back up, remember you have not pulled all the way up yet. Now pull up and all the way through.

Repeat.

Come back up a little below where you just came up, don’t go through all the way, move the needle further up, then come on up all the way!

It’s a little tricky getting the right angle. A tip for this would be to have the stitches on the left line in a straight a line as you can. It always takes me several stitches to get my grove. If I need to stop my sewing to do something else, which happens a lot in my household of 6 children, then I need to sew a few more stitches to get back into my grove.

As with everything else, you will improve with practice.

How To End A Whip Stitch

To end your row of whip stitches simply wrap the thread around your needle 3 or so times, go down close to the last stitch, and pull all the way down.

If you want to do it again go for it. Wrap 3 or so times on the needle, come back up close to where you just went down, and then just bring your needle down again to cut and hid the tail of the thread.

More Handicrafts For Homeschoolers

If you have followed these lessons your children now have a sampler where they have practiced the 5 basic stitches. This can be hung up proudly as a display and also as a reminder of what each stitch is called. With this stitch you can now make hems and sew on pockets, lace, ribbon, or whatever comes into your children’s imagination!

Come back for more tutorials! Handicraft lessons have never been so easy!

See you soon!