Backstitch
Encyclopedia
Embroidery
Embroidery is the art or handicraft of decorating fabric or other materials with needle and thread or yarn. Embroidery may also incorporate other materials such as metal strips, pearls, beads, quills, and sequins....
and sewing
Sewing
Sewing is the craft of fastening or attaching objects using stitches made with a needle and thread. Sewing is one of the oldest of the textile arts, arising in the Paleolithic era...
stitches in which individual stitches are made backward to the general direction of sewing. These stitches form lines and are most often used to outline shapes or to add fine detail to an embroidered picture.
Applications
Basic backstitch is used to outline shapes in modern cross-stitchCross-stitch
Cross-stitch is a popular form of counted-thread embroidery in which X-shaped stitches in a tiled, raster-like pattern are used to form a picture. Cross-stitch is often executed on easily countable evenweave fabric called aida cloth. The stitcher counts the threads in each direction so that the...
, in Assisi embroidery
Assisi embroidery
Assisi embroidery is a form of counted-thread embroidery based on an ancient Italian tradition where the background is filled with embroidery stitches and the main motifs are left void i.e. unstitched...
and occasionally in blackwork
Blackwork Embroidery
Blackwork Embroidery is a form embroidery using black thread. Sometimes it is counted-thread embroidery which is usually stitched on even-weave fabric. Any black thread can be used, but firmly twisted threads give a better look than embroidery floss. Traditionally blackwork is stitched in silk...
.
A versatile and easy to work stitch, backstitch is ideal for following both smooth and complicated outlines and as a foundation row for more complex embroidery stitches such as Herringbone ladder filling stitch. Although superficially similar to Holbein stitch
Holbein stitch
Holbein stitch is a simple, reversible line embroidery stitch most commonly used in Blackwork embroidery and Assisi embroidery. The stitch is named after Hans Holbein the Younger , a 16th-century portrait painter best known for his paintings of Henry VIII and his children, almost all of whom are...
, commonly used in Blackwork embroidery
Blackwork Embroidery
Blackwork Embroidery is a form embroidery using black thread. Sometimes it is counted-thread embroidery which is usually stitched on even-weave fabric. Any black thread can be used, but firmly twisted threads give a better look than embroidery floss. Traditionally blackwork is stitched in silk...
, backstitch differs in the way it is worked, requiring a single journey only to complete a line of stitching.
Stem stitch is an ancient technique; surviving mantles embroidered with stem stitch by the Paracas
Paracas culture
The Paracas culture was an important Andean society between approximately 800 BCE and 100 BCE, with an extensive knowledge of irrigation and water management. It developed in the Paracas Peninsula, located in what today is the Paracas District of the Pisco Province in the Ica Region...
people of Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
are dated to the first century BCE. Stem stitch is used in the Bayeux Tapestry
Bayeux Tapestry
The Bayeux Tapestry is an embroidered cloth—not an actual tapestry—nearly long, which depicts the events leading up to the Norman conquest of England concerning William, Duke of Normandy and Harold, Earl of Wessex, later King of England, and culminating in the Battle of Hastings...
, an embroidered cloth probably dating to the later 1070s, for lettering and to outline areas filled with couching or laid-work.
Split stitch in silk is characteristic of Opus Anglicanum
Opus Anglicanum
Opus Anglicanum or English work is a contemporary term for fine needlework of Medieval England done for ecclesiastical or secular use on clothing, hangings or other textiles, often using gold and silver threads on rich velvet or linen grounds...
, an embroidery style of Medieval England.
Description of the technique
Backstitch is most easily worked on an even-weaveEven-weave
Even-weave fabric or canvas is any woven textile where the warp and weft threads are of the same size.Even-weave fabrics are typically required as foundations for counted-thread embroidery styles such as cross-stitch, needlepoint, and blackwork so that a stitch of the same "count" will be the same...
fabric, where the threads can be counted to ensure regularity, and is generally executed from right to left. The stitches are worked in a 'two steps forward, one step back' fashion, along the line to be filled, as shown in the diagram.
The back stitch can also be used as a hand-sewing sewing utility stitch to attach two pieces of fabric together.
Variants
Variants of backstitch include:- Basic backstitch or point de sable.
- Threaded backstitch
- Pekinese stitch, a looped interlaced backstitch
- Stem stitch, in which each stitch overlaps the previous stitch to one side, forming a twisted line of stitching, with the thread passing below the needle. It is generally used for outlining shapes and for stitching flower stems and tendrils.
- Whipped stem stitch
- Outline stitch, sometimes distinguished from stem stitch in that the thread passes above rather than below the needle.
- Split stitch, in which the needle pierces the thread rather than returning to one side.
See also
- Embroidery stitchEmbroidery stitchIn everyday language, a stitch in the context of embroidery or hand-sewing is defined as the movement of the embroidery needle from the backside of the fabric to the front side and back to the back side. The thread stroke on the front side produced by this is also called stitch...
es - Cross-stitchCross-stitchCross-stitch is a popular form of counted-thread embroidery in which X-shaped stitches in a tiled, raster-like pattern are used to form a picture. Cross-stitch is often executed on easily countable evenweave fabric called aida cloth. The stitcher counts the threads in each direction so that the...
- Assisi embroideryAssisi embroideryAssisi embroidery is a form of counted-thread embroidery based on an ancient Italian tradition where the background is filled with embroidery stitches and the main motifs are left void i.e. unstitched...
- Blackwork embroideryBlackwork EmbroideryBlackwork Embroidery is a form embroidery using black thread. Sometimes it is counted-thread embroidery which is usually stitched on even-weave fabric. Any black thread can be used, but firmly twisted threads give a better look than embroidery floss. Traditionally blackwork is stitched in silk...