I always use a ladder stitch and much prefer it to a whip stitch, which was the way I originally learned. You rarely ever see any of your stitches. My grown daughter even brought me a well-loved huge teddy bear she's had since she was a baby that had lost about half the stitches around the neck and used a ladder stitch for that and you couldn't see them at all. I even use a ladder stitch for binding my quilts because it's so neat.