This Embroidery Stitch Picture Dictionary will help you to identify the stitches even if you don’t know the names! Dig through our embroidery stitch library of 300 stitches below—click over a picture and go directly to the stitch tutorial page.
When I started researching and documenting hand embroidery stitches way back in 2007, many stitches looked similar in their basic technique. To make identifying easier, I started categorizing them into different groups. I call each group a Stitch Family. This categorization should help you in easy reference, and for identifying and selecting the stitches. The Stitch Families are placed in alphabetical order. 🙂 Hover over the images for the alternate names in different popular languages.
We have a dedicated Hand Embroidery Book with the picture dictionary and step-by-step guides to each of these 306 stitches. Buy now and start stitching!
Back Stitch Family
Blanket Stitch Family
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Raised Blanket Stitch
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Knotted Blanket
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Chain Stitch Family
Chevron Stitch Family
Couching Stitch Family
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Honeycomb Filling
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Cretan Stitch Family
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Plaited Insertion
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Cross Stitch Family
Fishbone Stitch Family
Feather Stitch Family
Fly Stitch Family
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Reversed Fly
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Whipped Reversed
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Threaded Reversed
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Anklet Stitch
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Herringbone Stitch Family
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Laced Herringbone
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Indian H’bone
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Closed H’bone
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Otomi
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Shadow Stitch
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Maltese Cross
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Double Maltese
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Interlaced Maltese
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Int’ced d’ble Maltese
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Persian Star
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Vertical H’bone
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Vandyke
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H’bone Ladder
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Half Herringbone
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Raised Herringbone
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Knot Stitch Family
Palestrina Stitch Family
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Mountmellick
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Eastern Stitch
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Running Stitch Family
Satin Stitch Family
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Surface Satin
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Back Stitched Satin
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Trailing Stitch
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Double Satin
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Stem Stitch Family
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Double Lock Stitch
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Straight Stitch Family
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Weave Stitch Family
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Stripped Woven Band
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Broad Woven Picot
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Portuguese Border
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Knit Stitch Family
Learn all these stitches and plenty more from our 600-page eBook.
Sarah has been researching and sharing hand embroidery lessons for over 17 years, making it accessible to everyone around the globe.
sarah…..I have no word to explain…how ur tutors are helps to me…before this I have only basic idea about embroidery ….ur blog give me confidence …now I can imagine more disigns….thanx a lot
Thanx a lot madam.am so happy for ur designs.i learn so many designs from ur website.may god bless you.best of luck for your future.mam plz be kind enough to send me some baby cotsheet designs
This site is insane! Oh my word I know that I am going to spend hours upon hours here! I didn’t even know there were so many stitches! This is incredible! Thank you so much for all the work you put into this!
Hello Sarah,
You have such an excellent site. I wanted to learn basic embroidery and your site is my teacher. Thank you so much for sharing ur knowledge , it helps beginners like me.
hai sarah
ur site is very helpfuy to me.thank u very much and one thing also,if u know machine embroidary ,give me a little bit of it
Un grand merci pour ces explications si bien faites.
Belle soirée
manon
tnx
hi sarah
i am from bangla desh.ur blog is ammizing.
tnx for shareing
hi sarah,
i am from bd.your blog is amizing.its vary helpfull.u know bangla?plzz give some new stitch pic.tnx for shereing
AMAZING!!!!I’m now trying almost all of them!Thank you for offer these my friend~
(* ￣)(￣▽￣*)ゞ
I’m going to be a female otaku who is good at embroidery ……o((≧▽≦o) muhaha~~~LOL
Ecxellent idea to create a dictionary! Thank you for sharing with all of us your knowledge and creativity.
Thanks for sharing your talent and tutorial
Hugs, Myrna
assalam ao alaikum sarah. i really loved your work. no doubt this is a great helping website for the beginers. i will try these stitches. thanks for this help.
Hola Sara,te felicito por tu trabajo,hacía tiempo buscaba cómo aprender a bordar me encanta la puntada de cadeneta y ver que existen tantas variantes me hace muy feliz. Estoy muy agradecida con DIOS por tí, porque gracias a tus explicaciones las cuales son super podré bordar para mi madre unos lindos cojines, hasta pronto. Neidy, Venecia (ANT)
honestly it is an honest deed you have done. thank you
Thank you so much for your clear directions. This is an awesome site that I refer to often as I start embroidering again. You did a terrrific job of explaining the many stitches.
Terrific!!!! Barb
Dear Sarah…
Congrats for such a wonderful site. And thanks for all your efforts, both pictures and description is precise and clear.
I am a beginner and an aspirant to learn hand embroidery and searched on net over a plenty of sites. Your site turned really helpful.
Thank you
Dear sarah,
I am so excited on your works……its so nice & very useful……i m a fashion designing student sarah……..often for all my doubts & references i used 2 check this website.its so good & i thank u 4 that…..
Thank You for putting tutorials !:D i thought i might get a fail grade on my project slash periodic slash long quiz . Thank you!!:3 After my project, I”ll do some more stitches and embroidery. For past time , instead of facebooking all day. I wanna try them all!(: Thank you thank you thank youu!:)
Dear Pamela,
I am glad that our pages encourages you to tear yourself out of facebooking and involving in something more creative!! 😀
Once you do some stitching that makes you happy, do share it with us by uploading a picture of your work…we would love to have a look.
Beautiful stitches and fantastic work on the tutorials and pictures. I am sure that your sharing of your work has inspired many around the world. Thanks so much.
I had no idea that there were so many stitches. Some I knew but have not done in ages. Thanks for the tutural.
hey Sarah…..
thanks a lot for this picture dictionary….it helps a lot n ur doin a very gud job…
i hav made a hand bag and now our teacher has told to do atleast ten types of stitches on it……will u plss suggest me some ideas for it….m very confused.
Many thanks for this wonderful tutorial!
Dear sarah. . Thank you very Much for Your beautiful stiching instructions.
Thank you for this excellent website! I bookmarked your page.
simple superb…
Heyyy Sarah,,,
I just love your work..its simply awesome….you have explained everything in details yet in an easy way,feel like doing every single stitch and soon will start on it…
Thank You so much…..
I found your instructions very detailed and clear. The picture dictionary of stitches is so helpful. I’ve made copies of some of the stitches, that Iwill be ableto reference often. Thank you
hi sarah,
i am from coimbatore. after i saw your embroidery i joined embriodery class. it is very interesting . thank u so much.
hi Sarah,
I am from NepalGunj(Nepal).I am very impressed from urs designs n it has made me motif to do more stitches. Recently i have done training of stitches. Due to remote area in our locality there isnt any training institute like this. Thankyou Very much.
Sarah,
I have to admit that I am rather impressed with your site you have put together here. I have taken the time to look at all the different areas and the different stitches and never knew just how many there were or what they all were supposed to look like. I love the pictures you have posted to date and would like to know if you know of a couple others that I am needing to finish a couple different projects that I am working on. The first one is called cording, and the project it is for does not give proper instructions as to how to do it. If you know how I am to do this, I would love some instructions explaining how.
Thank you so very much for all you have done so far.
Dear Tanya,
Thanks. 🙂 I do have a lot more stitches to upload, but cording does not look like in the list. I can try to research something about this stitch, and if I get some good information, will do a tutorial on it.
In the meanwhile, I hope you get some reliable source to help you with this stitch and your project.
Hi Sarah,
I must say you have taken a lots of efforts to put together all these things, its a wonderful work you have done.
I was searching for some book or website for learning embroidery since last few months… and your website is a treat for me 😛
I loved the way systematically it is arranged and the details you have given to learn it.
Thanks a lot
Love N hugz
Komal
Pune, Maharashtra, India
Sarah,
This website is just beautiful. It’s an amazing resource for me, but even more of a tribute to your skill and dedication. I have never seen so many stitches in one place! Many I’ve never heard of, and methods from around the world that I can’t wait to try. You have enabled me to continue my art and given me ideas I never would have had without you! I’ll echo many others by saying, you could publish a fabulous book. I would certainly love it.
Best to you.
I second the book idea!!! 🙂
Dear Sarah,
I am sooooo impressed!!! I must say I have till date not seen a website giving tutorials in such a SIMPLE and CLEAR way!!!! Having the talent is one but teaching and teaching in the best and simplest manner is an amazing skill in itself!! You have BOTH!!
Thank you sooo much for all the tutorials! I look forward to more.
Also I would like to say urs is the most sort after and organised site I have ever seen. So easy to understand and find things!!! Even the picture dictionary is a GREAT idea!!!
Thank you !!
Hi Sarah,
Really a very good website!!! Worthful.. I am beginner in Hand Embroidery…. It helped to learn the basic stitches…. Really wiating for your E-Book…
Continue your best!!!
dear sarah,
yours embrodery ‘s tutorial is very helpful for the beginners like me.I’m very thankful to you nd my good wishes to you. confusion is how many threads we take for each embrodery. some says two some four nd some says six. I use anchor threads. just want to know that. and also I want to know the way how to fill the flowers and butterflies. thanks.
Dear Seema,
Thanks. 🙂
I am working on the ‘basics to follow’ page, which will tell about needles, threads and many of those things that need to be known while embroidering. I guess it should have been long ago posted, but other projects and daily chores delayed me.
Anyway, to help you out, usually the thread count depends on how fine/small, or prominent/big you want the stitches to look like. It can also depend on what fabric you are using. I think you can use two or three strands of thread. You can try experimenting with more number of threads to get a feel of how they show up. There is no rule as to how many strands you should use.
Check the satin stitch and fishbone stitch family to give ideas on how to fill objects.
Hope this helps.
Thanks sarah for your guidance. best wishes for you.
regards and thanks.
your works are so amazing
your work is so amazing and i like to study these all….
Thank you for the work you have put into all the stitch tutorials. Have you ever considered offering them all together in pdf format? You could even sell the booklet. I would love to have one! =)
Dear Christine,
We are working on an E-book…just that it is taking some time.
sarah, u’ve done an excellent work. Thanks to you and ur supporters.
wishing u success in ur thread way.
Dear sarah. . Thank you very Much for Your beautiful stiching instructions. . I love all these stiches. .
Sarah,
Thank you so much for all of your work and patient to put up this big tutorial!!
Cheers from Portugal!
Sónia
Thank you so much sarah..i am thinking to set up my boutique..ur website have helped..
This is very I helpful! I can easily choose and compare which stitch looks more suitable for my works. Thanks!
That is very impressive！！！
Thank you for sharing it with us.
I‘m going to learn it from your website
Wait for more.
Hi Sarah!
You’re site is just simply amazing!
Informative and well organize.
It really helps me a lot in my school work.
Thanks a lot! <3<3<3
dear sarah,
great work. i was worried that there are no embroidery classes near my house in bangalore. thanks sarah for such good information.
after seeing your site, i have started learning as well as teaching embroidery to my 10 year old daughter. she too is enjoying doing embroidery.
mansa
Really nice to know Manasa. 🙂 Do post some of your and your daughter’s works here, when you feel like. It will help others to take inspiration.
Thank you SO MUCH for having a picture dictionary of your stitches along with their directions. I have searched for years to find a strange looking stitch that my gr.grandmother used on potholders and “crazy quilts”. Needing to repair a few older pcs. I was lost in how to make these unusual stitches. Thanks to you, I could just look and see what matched!! How wonderful and what a relief!! Now these heirlooms can continue on to other family members with all the stitches in tact.
I used to embroider as a teenager – doodling on my jeans with all sorts of crazy designs. Looking over all this beautiful work makes me want to take it up again. I’d have to get rid of several trunks full of yarn before hubby would allow me to take up yet another craft, but I could possibly squeeze in a tiny corner for it somewhere if I try! 🙂
Thanks again, So Very Much, for having this site. It must have taken you ages to put it together and all for the sake of others, like me. What an angel you are and I think I can see a hint of a halo coming up from behind your left ear. Go check….see it? It’s there, keep looking!!
Dear Dianne,
Thanks! 🙂 It is really nice to read how this dictionary has helped you. Yes, it is quite a task to bring up one page of tutorial, especially when you are pressed on time and energy (with a 3 year old and a 6 month old at home…and what energy balls!). So, it feels good that you are able to learn from our pages and appreciate our efforts.
This is the most wonderful website for embroidery! Thank you so much for all your hard work, clear instructions, and willingness to share your knowledge. I have particularly enjoyed learning the history of Indian embroidery. You are a star! Thank you.
thanks a lot for sharing all the wonderful you know.marvellous work.thanks a lot.
evi from Greece.