The Snail Trail Stitch is a useful and effective stitch for stems and outlining where a fine spotted tracery or broken effect is desired. You may find it useful to draw a faint line in the length and shape you wish to embroider. This stitch may be done with the work held straight toward you or from left to right.
To work: Bring the needle up to the right side of the work. Hold the silk under the thumb of the left hand, pass the needle over the silk held under the thumb and insert it in the material on the left hand side of the line, about one-eighth of an inch from where it was first brought up. Bring it up again to the right side on the opposite side of the traced line; it thus passes below the material and below the silk held by the thumb, and over the silk that is threaded in the needle. Draw the thread through. By this process a long straight stitch and a small loop stitch will be formed. Repeat this process at regular intervals.
Note: Set the needle in only a slightly slanting direction, as seen in the figure above.
