Canvas Tip: Ways to Stitch

Happy Election day, all you US citizens!  And to everyone else, happy Tuesday!  Sorry this post is so late; I'm so busy getting ready for my trip on Thursday to visit my brother-in-law.  I love trips, but I just hate all the work you have to do to get ready for them.  Someone should invent a trip readying service!

So today's tip is about two different ways to stitch plastic canvas.  Yes, indeedy, there are two ways to stitch your piece, and believe it or not, it actually makes a difference. 

Now, until recently, I didn't even know that, and my guess is that you probably don't know that either.  It's a little hard to explain in words, so let me try explaining in pictures instead.

Here are the two ways of stitching, shown in continental stitch.  They may not look too different from the front (especially because that's a pretty bad shot!), but here's what it looks like from the back:

Now it should be a little more clear.  The dark green uses a longer stitch in the back than the light green.  I used to stitch the short way, like the light green, because it saved yarn.  Well, that's true, but I also found out recently that it provides less cover.  If there's any dark color behind your stitches, it's much easier to see it if you used the short stitch. And when you're stitching in a dark color, you more even color coverage with the long stitch. 

As an added bonus, it's a million times easier with the long stitch to put your needle under previous stitches to finish the string. 

In case you're still uncertain, here's some graphics to demonstrate the two stitches.

Long stitch

Short stitch

This method of stitching also works for just about every other stitch as well and the benefits apply to all the ones I've used.  Now that I've been using the long stitch on my projects, I really don't see any reason to go back to the short stitch, with two exceptions: if  I only have a small amount of a certain color of yarn to work with, and if I'm going for a more transparent look.  So far, I haven't had either of those cases come up.

So did any of you know the two different ways to stitch?  How have you been stitching all along?  Let me know, I'd love to hear what your experiences are!