Learning embroidery stitches

This section helps you learn embroidery stitches. For every stitch there's an embroidery stitch tutorial with step-by-step instructions and an embroidery stitch video showing you how to do embroidery stitches.

My kits and patterns have markings showing you how to form the stitches and exactly where they go, so my designs make it really easy for you to learn new stitches. For example, the picture below shows the fabric for my Scandinavian trees design, where you can see the markings ready for you to stitch over:

Scandinavian trees embroidery pattern with stitch markings

How to do embroidery stitches

Learn how to do these popular embroidery stitches. You would use them all in my stitch sampler design, but many of them are used in other kits within my range. You can see in the list below where the stitches are specific to an individual design:

Back stitch including whipped back stitch
Basket weave stitch
Blanket stitch
Blanket stitch leaves for the autumn trees design
Blanket stitch wheels for the cat embroidery and the chirpy birds
Chain stitch
Couching stitch, including trellis stitch
Feather stitch, including double feather stitch and maidenhair stitch
Fern stitch, including fan shapes
Fly stitch
French knots (right hand), including a video for lazy French knots and instructions for colonial knots, an easy alternative to French knots
French knots (left hand) - thanks to left-hander Abby Knowles who made this video
Lazy daisy stitch including open lazy daisy stitch
Palestrina stitch
Pekinese stitch
Satin stitch
Seed stitch and straight stitch
Stars
Stem stitch
Woven wheel stitch

Royal School of Needlework

The Royal School of Needlework is building a stitch bank which aims to preserve every known stitch. It will become a world-wide directory of embroidery stitches.

I'm the proud sponsor of double back stitch (even though I don't use it in any of my kits!)

The stitch bank shows you how to do a huge variety of embroidery stitches, some of which are well-known and popular while others are very unusual.

Embroidery tips for beginners

My embroidery videos don't just show you how to do embroidery stitches. They also give you really useful embroidery tips covering the things that often aren't covered but you really need to know if your embroidery is going to be successful. The videos show you how to: