Embroidery Stitches

Some threads refuse to go through a needle. Wool yarn, chunky perle cotton, metallic cord, ribbon: all gorgeous, all needle-proof. Couching is the workaround, and it is embarrassingly simple. You lay the thick thread on the fabric exactly where you want the line, then you tack it down with tiny stitches in a thinner thread, … Read more

Nobody compliments the back of your embroidery until you sell a piece, enter it in a show, or hand it to a framer, and then the back is suddenly the entire conversation. I learned this when a framer flipped over a hoop I had brought in and went quiet in the specific way that means … Read more

The pistil stitch is what happens when a French knot grows a tail and gets a job. One wrap around the needle, one knot, and one long straight span of thread trailing behind it, and suddenly you have a flower stamen that looks botanical instead of blobby. I ignored this stitch for two years because … Read more

Most “layered” embroidery looks flat because the stitcher piled thread in the wrong order and called it dimension. Real 3D layering is architecture: a foundation, a middle, and a surface, each one doing a different job. When you layer embroidery stitches for 3D effect correctly, petals cast actual shadows on each other, and people touch … Read more

Split stitch is the only embroidery stitch that looks like drawing. Backstitch looks like stitching. Stem stitch looks like rope. But split stitch outlines have a broken, sketchy quality, each stitch visibly piercing the last, that reads exactly like a pencil line on paper. I stumbled into this while outlining a bird pattern in 2022, … Read more

A skein of DMC floss holds about 8.7 yards, per DMC’s own specs. That sounds like plenty until you fill a four-inch flower with satin stitch and watch two full skeins vanish into one petal. Learning how to fill large embroidery areas without burning through your floss stash is part thrift and part design sense, … Read more

I learned the colonial knot at 1 a.m. from a grainy video, immediately frogged the french knot centers out of a hoop I had already framed, and re-stitched them colonial. The difference was embarrassing. The french knots had been lumpy and shy; the colonial knots sat up round and confident like tiny berries. That was … Read more

My first embroidered leaf looked like a crumpled napkin. I was stitching a birthday hoop for my sister, a simple sprig with four curved leaves, and every stem came out wavy and puckered, like the fabric was trying to escape the thread. I frogged the whole thing twice before I learned the truth: if you … Read more

I stitched my first turkey work on a dare. My stitching group was making animal portraits, everyone else was doing sensible things like satin stitch fur, and I announced I would do a lion. A lion needs a mane. A mane needs fluff. Turkey work, which despite the name has nothing to do with the … Read more

My chain stitch had a drinking problem. Every line I stitched wandered left, lurched right, and arrived at the end of the row a full quarter inch from where it started. I blamed my hands for a month. Then I watched a woman at a craft fair stitch a border so straight it looked printed, … Read more