The main types of hand embroidery

Embroidery is the craft of decorating fabric with stitches, using a needle and thread. There is no single agreed way to sort it into types, but three big groups cover most of it: surface embroidery, where stitches follow a design drawn on the fabric; counted work, where stitches are counted over the threads of the fabric; and whitework, which is white stitching on white cloth. Alongside those are raised and metal thread work, and techniques that use ribbon, beads or loops of yarn.

Many types are named for a thread (crewel, goldwork), a color (redwork, blackwork, whitework) or a place (Hardanger, Mountmellick, Ayrshire). This page covers the ones you are most likely to meet. It is an overview, not a complete list, and every tradition here runs deeper than a paragraph can show.

Types of hand embroidery at a glance

Surface embroidery

Surface embroidery, also called freestyle or free embroidery, is any embroidery where the stitches do not follow the weave of the fabric. The design is normally drawn or transferred onto the fabric, and you cover it with whichever stitches suit it, worked in any direction. It can be done on any fabric with a sharp needle, and stranded cotton floss is probably the most popular thread.

Several of the types below are surface embroidery with a particular thread or look. Crewel, for one, is surface embroidery in wool. Start with the basic stitches.

Crewel

Crewel is surface embroidery worked in a fine, loosely twisted two-ply wool, traditionally on a tightly woven linen twill. The stitches are worked freely, not counted, and a piece often uses a wide variety of them. Crewel wool is thicker than ordinary embroidery thread, which gives the work its raised, textured look.

Wool embroidery of this kind is very old. The Bayeux Tapestry, from the 11th century, is an early example. But crewel is most closely tied to Britain in the early 1600s, in the reign of James I, which is why it is also called Jacobean work. Designs from that time often show a tree with flowing branches, stylized leaves, flowers, fruit and animals.

Redwork

Redwork is embroidery worked entirely in red thread on a white or natural-colored ground. The redwork of the late 1800s and early 1900s is outline embroidery: only the lines of the design are stitched, in stitches such as back stitch, stem stitch, outline stitch or chain stitch. The motifs were the kind used on tea towels, aprons and dresser scarves, and they were stitched onto quilts too. The same idea in blue thread is called bluework.

An older redwork is counted. It was usually worked in red double running stitch on white cloth, and it became popular in northwestern Europe in the 1500s, alongside blackwork.

Blackwork

Blackwork is embroidery in a single color, generally black thread on white or off-white fabric. Since the 1920s it has been treated as a counted technique on evenweave fabric. Shapes are outlined in back stitch or double running stitch, also called Holbein stitch, and filled with small repeating geometric patterns. Modern pieces shade a design by making the pattern denser or changing the thickness of the thread.

Blackwork decorated linen collars and cuffs in Tudor England, where it was also called Spanish work. Surviving garments with flowers and curling stems are often freehand work, not counted, and the counted version was revived in the 20th century.

Whitework

Whitework is white embroidery on white fabric. With no color to work with, texture does the job: padded stitches, eyelets, threads cut or drawn out of the fabric, and threads pulled tight to make patterns of holes. It is a family of techniques, not one. Members include broderie anglaise and other cutwork, Hardanger from Norway, Mountmellick from Ireland, Schwalm from Germany, Ayrshire work from Scotland, and chikan work (often called chikankari) from India, whose main historic center is Lucknow.

Sashiko

Sashiko is a Japanese technique of running stitches, usually white thread on indigo-dyed cloth. The name means "little stabs". It was probably first used to repair worn clothing and to quilt layers of cloth together, which made clothes thicker, warmer and longer-lasting, and the stitches form geometric patterns. Boro is the related practice of mending and patching worn cloth, and the word is also used for the patched textiles themselves. Kogin, from the Tsugaru area in the north of Japan, is a counted form often classed with sashiko.

Goldwork

Goldwork uses metal threads. Most of the thread stays on the surface, because most metal threads are impractical to take through the fabric. They are laid down and fastened with a second thread, which is called couching, or cut into short lengths and sewn on like beads, often over padding. Goldwork has long been used for religious, military and ceremonial pieces. Medieval English embroidery with gold and silver thread, known as Opus Anglicanum ("English work"), was in demand across Europe. Zardozi, which began in Persia and is practiced today in India and Pakistan, is another metal thread tradition.

Stumpwork

Stumpwork, or raised embroidery, builds shapes that stand up from the fabric. Stitches are worked over padding, and small pieces called slips are embroidered separately, sometimes edged with wire, and then sewn on. Leaves, wings and petals are typical wired pieces, and needlelace is often used for clothing and foliage. It was popular in 17th century England, where it was called raised or "embosted" work. The word stumpwork was not coined until the 19th century.

Ribbon embroidery

Ribbon embroidery uses narrow ribbon, traditionally silk, in place of thread. It is stitched with a chenille needle, which has a large eye and a sharp point. Simple stitches build three-dimensional shapes, roses above all. In France, ribbon work moved from uniforms and church clothing into fashion in the second half of the 1700s. Later, from about 1820 to 1850, ribbon embroidery was fashionable on dresses and men's waistcoats.

Needle painting

Needle painting is also called thread painting, silk shading or long and short stitch shading. It fills shapes with long and short stitch, changing the shade of thread little by little so the colors blend. It is used for realistic flowers, animals, people and landscapes. It was first worked in silk and is now often worked in stranded cotton. In China, the fine silk embroidery of Suzhou came to be known as "painting by needle".

Punch needle

Punch needle uses a hollow needle with the thread running down its stem. The design is drawn on the back of the fabric, which is held taut in a hoop or frame. You punch the point through again and again, and each punch leaves a loop on the other side. Together the loops make a pile that looks like carpet, and it can be left looped or cut. A very fine version, worked with a single strand taken from six-strand floss, is sometimes called Russian punch needle in the United States.

Bead embroidery

Bead embroidery attaches beads to fabric singly or in groups. It appears in many places. Glass beads became part of Native American decorative work after traders introduced them. Tambour beading, which uses a fine hook in place of a needle, remains the favored method of the couture houses, and the French town of Lunéville is known for it. In India a similar hook is used for ari (also spelled aari) work, where beads and sequins are kept on the front of the cloth.

Counted work

In counted-thread embroidery you count the threads of an evenweave fabric to place each stitch, often working from a chart. Cross stitch, blackwork and Hardanger are all counted. So is canvas work, which is called needlepoint in the United States, and so is bargello, a canvas technique of upright stitches in wave-like bands. Cross stitch is also the most recognizable stitch of tatreez, the embroidery of Palestine, and it is often used in the embroidery of western Ukraine. For how these compare with surface embroidery, see embroidery vs cross stitch.

More traditions to know

• Kantha, from Bangladesh and eastern India: layers of old cloth sewn together with rows of running stitch.
• Otomi embroidery, whose modern form is called tenangos, from the Otomi people of Hidalgo, Mexico: brightly colored plants and animals filled with close, narrow herringbone stitch.
• Hmong paj ntaub ("flower cloth"): applique, reverse applique, cross stitch and surface stitches, and the story cloths that grew out of them.
• Phulkari, from Punjab: silk floss worked in darning stitch from the back of the cloth.
• Matyó embroidery, from in and around the town of Mezőkövesd in northeastern Hungary: floral motifs in flat stitches.

Which type to start with

• If you want to stitch from a drawn pattern, start with surface embroidery. See how to start.
• If you prefer counting to drawing, start with cross stitch. Aida fabric, with its visible grid, is a favorite with beginners.
• If you want something practical, try sashiko. It is built from the running stitch.
• Leave goldwork and stumpwork until the basic stitches feel easy. They add special materials and padding on top of ordinary stitches.