Woven wheel stitch tutorial
To learn how to do a woven wheel, why not check out my woven wheel stitch tutorial. It includes:
- illustrated embroidery stitch instructions
- a video showing you how to do woven wheel stitch
- tips for success
- Royal School of Needlework stitch bank.
Woven wheel uses
Woven wheel stitch is useful for creating circle shapes, especially for making flower heads. That's why the stitch is sometimes called rose wheel stitch.
You make woven wheels by stitching an odd number of spokes on a circle, usually 5. Then you weave thread over and under the spokes, going round the circle. You work from the centre outwards to build up the wheel, a bit like a spider's web.
In the photo woven wheels are used to create the spots on one of the dogs in my dog embroidery kit:
Woven wheel stitch tutorial
- Create the spokes of the wheel first. Bring your needle up at 1, just past the rim of the circle, and down through the entre of the circle at 2. Bring needle up again at 3, then down through 2 again. Continue until you have completed 5 spokes around the circle.
- Bring your needle up near the centre of the circle and slightly to the right at 7. Take your needle and thread over the first spoke, then under the next spoke, with the needle going between the spoke and the surface of the fabric.
- Then take your needle and thread over the next spoke and back under the next one. Continue working your way round in this way until the circle is covered.
- The diagram shows the weaving done loosely so you can see how it's done. The weaving should be close enough to create a wheel without gaps. You'll go round the circle more times if you want a tight, raised wheel.
- To finish, push the needle back through the fabric, sightly under the edge of the finished wheel where you won't see it, and secure.
Woven wheel stitch video
Woven wheel stitch tips
- For flower heads you can do the weaving tightly to make a fuller, more raised wheel. Or you can leave the weaving fairly loose to make a flatter circle like the spots on my dog embroidery.
- You can do the spokes in one colour and then do the weaving in a different colour.
Download my free stitch guide covering 10 basic embroidery stitches.
More on woven wheel stitch
The Royal School of Needlework has a stitch bank which aims to preserve every known stitch. It will become a world-wide directory of embroidery stitches. You can read their stitch bank entry about woven wheels and see their woven wheel stitch tutorial here.