Difference between Catch and Herringbone Stitches per AOK

[Tobinn]

I am diligently and slowly working my way through a first reading of AOK and absorbing advice provided through this forum and a plethora of YouTube videos.

I am learning to sew and am practicing stitching.

I am stuck on two stitches - similar, I think, but distinct.

The AOK notes, among several, two stitches; the catch and herringbone.

I have found these videos on the Catch Stitch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP-HE1lDNO8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDdk7HZoiMI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEmpMoEFrjM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi5c7UnEA0w

None of these seem the same as the Catch Stitch as presented in AOK.

These are videos on the Herringbone Stitch that I've found:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JyFBXtsO34
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cm3Jk6fcnxA

The videos on the catch and herringbone stitch seem very similar to each other but, as I noted, the catch stitch shown in AOK appears to be distinct from either of these stitches.

Any advice or direction or more appropriate videos would be welcome.

As always - thanks!!

Mark

[Steve Ashton]

Just for clarity do you mean "The Art of Kiltmaking"? Also known as TAoK?

The catch stitch and the Herringbone stitch are fundamentally the same. It is how they are used that makes them different.\

The Catch Stitch - Also known as the Blind Hem Stitch is uses to finish a hem where the stitches do not show on the outside or right side of the fabric.



The Herringbone stitch is primarily a decorative stitch meant to be seen.

][

[Tobinn]

Ahh, yes, I dropped the "T" - I am referring to The Art of Kiltmaking.

Your explanation of the difference is what I was thinking but the illustration in Appendix A for the catch stitch seems to show a stitch that's different from the catch stitch. I think it's showing a method of joining two pieces of fabric together with stitches that will not be seen from either side; when snugged the two pieces are drawn together and the bulk of the stitches will end up being sandwiched between the fabrics. I don't want to scan and post the illustration without permission, though.

[Steve Ashton]

What page please. And do you havethe first or second printing?

[Tobinn]

Second Printing 2007
Appendix A; Page 119

[The Wizard of BC]

I teach that there are very few stitches that one needs to make a kilt.

The Fell Stitch also known as the Edge Stitch, the Running Stitch and about a dozen other names.



This is the stitch you use to sew the pleats. The goal is to create totally invisible stitches. You keep the stitch length very small with equal tension on every stitch.
This is how you sew two or more layers of fabric to each other, face to face right along an edge.




This is also the stitch used to do a fabric join if you use a Flat Fell Seam.





I use a slight modification of the Fell or Running stitch to sew my liner.

[



The Catch Stitch, also known as the Herrinbone Stitch, the Blind Hem Stitch and about a dozen other names.



This is the stitch used on the apron facings and the apron tips.
This is how my apron facings are sewn. This is different than Barb teaches.



And for the little turn up for the apron tips.





The Pick Stitch.



This is the stitch you use to do the apron fringe or anywhere you need to sew two or more layers of fabric face to face but cannot sew right on the edge like sewing a pleat.



This stitch is sewn just inside of the edge of the fabric and leaves a small line of divots behind. You can sometimes see pick stitches along the edge of jacket lapels.

I use the Pick Stitch to sew the bottom on my apron facings.





The Pad Stitch

This stitch is used to sew the interfacing and the stabilizer into the kilt.
The goal is to fasten one fabric to another allowing for some give.

Pad stitches unlike Tailors basting stay in the garment.
There are many types and styles of pad stitching.

My method



Barb's method



Pad Stitching the interfacing



In the above photo you see stitches in black thread and also white thread.

The black stitches are Pad Stitches and the white are Tailor's Basting.

The difference is that Pad Stitches do not go all the way through to the outside and stay in the garment. They anchor the interfacing.
Tailors Basting temporarily hold layers in their correct position and relation while pressing and are removed afterwards.

Tailor's Basting and the Pleat Basting Stitch is used like pins. To temporarily hold layers of fabric together during other steps like pressing. Basting stitches do not leave lumps like pins do so is the preferred method.

Pleat basting.






The last is not really a stitch per say but a way of sewing the straps into the kilt. The only requirement is that strap stitching must be very strong.

[Pleater]

There is probably some succinct word in Latin, or perhaps it needs Greek, that means 'it must hold' - that is what your stitching has to do above all else.
Although I had access to a sewing machine from an early age - I repaired the leather belt on my grandmother's treadle machine and used it to make all sorts of things, there is a certain quality - Zen or whatever, to hand sewing, or to making anything by hand really - I have lots of knitting machines but I still knit by hand.

Pleating is a very ancient method of controlling fullness, the reeds of smocks, the skirts of doublets, Elizabethan ruffs and those huge skirts, - or making a full sleeve fit into a cuff, shaping a cap or bonnet, even creating a fan.
The fell of a kilt is a specialised variation as it is shaped within the pleats.
I think that is why the military kilt failed - the dominant stripes were kept in the centre of the pleat and then the fabric was cut just slightly too close to the stitching and drifting across the grain, which removed the stability of the weaving.
The oldest kilts would not have been shaped or cut, it would have been against reason to destroy the work put into the fabric - scissors able to cut it would not have been commonplace, and the concept of tailoring for a close fit had not yet arrived.