Free stitch guide
Stitch dictionaries list hundreds of stitches, and none of them tell you which one to use for the petal, the sky or the outline in front of you.
Here are the 21 hand embroidery stitches our patterns use, grouped by job, with step-by-step guides to the five you’ll stitch most and a simple way to choose a stitch for any shape.
Most embroidery stitches do one of four jobs. Fills cover an area with thread. Line stitches draw outlines, stems and lettering. Raised and detached stitches sit on top of the fabric as dots, loops and coils. Border stitches make decorative bands along a line or an edge. Once you know which job a part of the design needs, the choice narrows to two or three stitches.
These are the 21 stitches StitchThis patterns use. Every one is explained with a numbered diagram in the PDF of any pattern that uses it.
| Stitch | Family | Best for | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|
| Satin | Fill | Small, smooth shapes: petals, leaves, letters | Medium |
| Long and short | Fill | Wide areas and soft shading (thread painting) | Harder |
| Fishbone | Fill | Leaves, with a vein down the middle | Medium |
| French knot | Raised | Dots, flower centers, texture | Medium |
| Lazy daisy | Detached | Small petals and leaves | Easy |
| Bullion knot | Raised | Rosebuds, coiled petals, little caterpillars | Harder |
| Woven wheel | Raised | Round, raised roses | Easy |
| Spider web | Raised | Ridged round roses and buttons | Medium |
| Backstitch | Line | Outlines, lettering, fine details | Easy |
| Stem | Line | Stems, curves and soft rope-like lines | Easy |
| Running | Line | Dashed lines, quick outlines, quilting looks | Easy |
| Split | Line | Smooth lines and edges under satin or long and short | Easy |
| Chain | Line | Bold lines; rows of it fill an area | Easy |
| Couching | Line | Thick or special threads laid along a line | Easy |
| Cross | Border | Rows of X’s along a band | Easy |
| Blanket | Border | Edges, appliqué and scalloped borders | Easy |
| Herringbone | Border | Wide crossed bands | Medium |
| Chevron | Border | Zigzag bands with a bar at each point | Medium |
| Fern | Border | Fronds and branching lines | Easy |
| Feather | Border | Branching, airy lines and crazy-quilt seams | Medium |
| Cretan | Border | Plaited bands and leaves | Medium |
Difficulty is how long most stitchers take to get it looking even, not how complicated the needle path is.
The dot of embroidery: flower centers, eyes, texture. How to do a French knot without it pulling through.
Smooth, glossy fills for small shapes. How to satin stitch with neat edges and no gaps.
One anchored loop makes a petal or a leaf. How to work lazy daisy petals that sit evenly.
The thread-painting fill for wide areas and blended color. How to do long and short stitch with no visible rows.
Clean lines for outlines and lettering. How to backstitch with even stitches and smooth curves.
Satin stitch looks best when every stitch is shorter than about 1 cm (3/8 in); longer stitches snag and sag. Anything wider wants long and short stitch, or the shape split into smaller sections.
Stems, outlines and lettering are lines, not fills. Backstitch gives a crisp line, stem stitch a softer rope that follows curves, split stitch a smooth line that can sit under a fill.
A dot is a French knot, not a tiny satin circle. A small petal is one lazy daisy loop. They are faster and look more like the real thing.
Smooth satin reads as petals or polished surfaces, long and short as fur, feathers and skin, knots as moss, seeds or curls. Pick the texture of the thing, not just its color.
Floss shines along its length, so stitches that change angle look lighter or darker in the same color. Lay fill stitches the way the fur grows or the petal curves, and keep neighbors at different angles so shapes read apart.
Strand count changes all of this too: more strands make bolder lines and faster fills, fewer give finer detail. Our guide to how many strands of floss to use covers it stitch by stitch.
When you turn a photo into a hand embroidery pattern on StitchThis, the generator splits the picture into stitchable shapes and chooses a stitch for each one with the same rules as above:
Every fill also gets a stitch direction. In the editor you can click any shape and change it to any of the 21 stitches, turn its direction on a clock-face wheel, add outlines or draw your own backstitch lines. The PDF then explains each stitch you used, with a numbered diagram. Make a hand embroidery pattern from your photo to see which stitches your picture gets.
Embroidery is built from the back of the scene to the front, so later stitches cover the edges of earlier ones. Our patterns list the order for you, with a thumbnail per step:
Long and short and other large fills lay the background and the main forms.
Satin and fishbone shapes sit on top of the big fills’ edges.
Lazy daisies, bullions, woven wheels and spider webs go on top of the fills.
Knots come late so nothing snags or flattens them.
Stems, details and outlines finish the piece and tidy every edge they cross.
Start with backstitch, stem stitch, satin stitch, the French knot and the lazy daisy. Between them they draw lines, fill small shapes, make dots and make petals, which covers most simple floral designs.
Hundreds, counting named variations. Most designs need only a handful; StitchThis patterns draw from 21 that cover fills, lines, raised stitches and borders.
Running stitch, then backstitch. Both are just the needle going up and down along a line, and backstitch gives a solid line that looks finished.
Long and short stitch. Its staggered rows cover wide shapes without long loose stitches and let one color blend into the next. Satin stitch is better kept to shapes under about 1 cm (3/8 in) across.
Satin stitch spans a shape edge to edge in one pass, so it suits narrow shapes. Long and short works in staggered rows that split into each other, so it can cover any width and shade between colors.
Backstitch for crisp, even outlines and lettering; stem stitch for smooth curves and stems; split stitch when the outline will sit under or beside a fill.
No. A pattern uses only the stitches it needs, and the PDF has a numbered diagram and instructions for each one. You can also swap any shape to a stitch you already know in the editor before you save.
Making and editing a pattern is free with a StitchThis account. Saving it or downloading the PDF uses a pattern credit ($5.99 per pattern, or 5 for $20). Embroidery is included in Maker ($5.99/month) and in Craft Unlimited, with unlimited patterns.
