Carrying Threads. A View from the Backside.

Hello from the backside!

I often get asked about how to finish the backs of my embroidered dishtowels. While I do try to make the backside neat, it is not as neat as the front. There is an old adage, "Make the back as neat as the front". Not sure how to achieve this perfection as I am self taught, but here are my tricks to carry threads and neaten up my knots.

This view is from the backside of "Farm Girl" Embroidered Dishtowel.

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In these photo's, I am finding a path to bring my thread to the next crevice line in my stitched tomato.
I don't want to knot and start my thread again. It is only a 1 inch to my next stitching line. But, I do not want to carry the thread across the back. This causes potential pulling and looks messy.
So, I wrap around existing
lines to get where I need to go.

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Now, I have wrapped my red thread around the green tomato leaf lines. I am ready to backstitch the next tomato crevice. 
After this red tomato line is finished, I wrap back around the red line and into the green leaf lines as you will see in the next photo.

Wrapped red thread to the last tomato crevice line.  Then backstitched this last line. My tomato is done.
Ready to knot the red thread off.

To knot, I wrap the and square knot the thread. Pull until just taught. 
Never pull embroidery  tight. Embroidery is meant to sit gently.

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As an additional security measure, as these towels may get washed many, many times, I wrap my thread up into the backstitched line to hold.

When starting  a new thread, I have a knot at the end, after 1 or 2 stitches, I try to remember to go back and wrap that knot as well. Again, as a precaution to secure the knot.
I do sometimes get lost in my stitching and forget this step : )

Happy Stitching!
Barri Sue