Stem stitch is one of those basic embroidery stitches that stitchers either love or hate. I happen to be one of those that loves it. It is one of my favorite embellishments to use on craft projects and quilts. When I do redwork blocks I rarely use anything else. One of my friends who loves the chain stitch wanted me to share how I make my stem stitch so I decided to create a short photo tutorial.
Here in Photo 1, I have brought up my thread to the front of my fabric piece and inserted back through and halfway to where I came up.
Photo 2 shows where I have inserted my needle down and taken a stitch. You can see where the next stitch begins in the middle of the first stitch.

In Photo 3 the needle is inserted and comes up at the end of the first stitch. This completes the second stitch when you pull it through.

Now Photo 4 shows that the stitches continue as in the previous photo until you get the length of the line you are completing.

Photo 5 is a complete line but to finish the line off you will simply take your needle down as if making another stitch BUT you do not come back up.

Hope this helps you try the stitch. For the steps above I used a piece of felt and perle cotton for demonstration purposes. On quilts I usually use 3 strands of embroidery floss and a crewel embroidery needle on cotton and fashion fabrics.
You can see a redwork block using the stem stitch on my other blog, Crazy Crafting Mama. I made this block for an exchange with an embroidery group.
quilting, embroidery, stem stitch, redwork, tutorial