What Is Embroidery?

How is embroidery made?

Embroidery is made by passing thread through a finished ground fabric with a needle or hook. The stitches are mainly decorative rather than structural. The Textile Research Centre in Leiden notes that the two functions can overlap.

The ground is usually held taut while it is worked. For free-motion embroidery on a domestic sewing machine, New Mexico State University’s extension guide (NMSU) recommends a 15–20 cm hoop with an adjustment screw. The feed dog is lowered or covered, and the top tension is set looser than the bobbin tension.

Not all embroidery uses a needle. Indian ari work is chain stitching made with a hooked needle called an awl. The V&A says it likely began in the Mochi community, who traditionally made and repaired footwear. It was used on leather shoes and horse trappings before it moved to cloth.

Threads include cotton, silk, wool and metal. Medieval English goldwork used filé: a narrow, flat strip of silver or gold wound round a silk core. Broader definitions of embroidery also take in beads, metal, glass and seeds stitched to cloth, which is where it meets beading and other embellishments.

What are the main embroidery stitches?

There is no single official list, but the stitches below recur across traditions, each formed in a different way.

Where does embroidery come from?

No one knows where embroidery began. Archaeological finds date it to at least the second millennium BC, and the Textile Research Centre says it probably goes back much further. One of the oldest surviving groups comes from the tomb of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun, who died around 1323 BC. The earliest Chinese example found so far, according to the same source, comes from a tomb at Mashan in Hubei province, from the Zhanguo (Warring States) period.

In medieval Europe, the Latin phrase opus anglicanum (“English work”) was first used in the 13th century for luxurious embroideries made in England of silk and precious-metal thread. The V&A dates its “Great Period” to about 1250–1350. The Bayeux Tapestry, despite its name, is an 11th-century embroidery in wool on linen, nearly 70 metres long, that tells the story of the Norman conquest of 1066.

In South Asia, embroidery is a living craft whose regional names describe distinct techniques:

• Chikan is white-work embroidery in very fine stitches on delicate cotton, with the finest pieces usually attributed to Lucknow. Its repertoire runs to around 35 stitches, and traditionally specialist embroiderers each work particular stitches before passing the piece on.
• Zardozi, from zar (gold) and dozi (work), uses gold or silver wrapped threads and embellishments. It is still used to decorate special-occasion garments.
• Phulkari, the traditional embroidery of the Punjab, is darned from the reverse of handwoven cotton. The densest pieces, called bagh (garden), are headcovers traditionally made in preparation for weddings, and one can take over a year to finish.
• Kantha, from West Bengal and Bangladesh, transforms worn-out textiles into covers, mats and bedspreads, quilted in running stitch and decorated with darning, satin and buttonhole stitches.

Where a garment is sold under one of these names, look for the region and the maker to be named. A design printed or machine-stitched to resemble a regional style is not the tradition itself.

How is embroidery different from appliqué, brocade and beading?

Embroidery builds its design from stitched thread on a finished cloth; appliqué builds it from cut fabric shapes sewn on, brocade weaves the pattern in during weaving, and beading attaches hard beads.

How does embroidery appear on a clothing label?

Under US law, embroidery may not appear in the fibre-content line, because it counts as decorative trim. The FTC’s rule (16 CFR 303.12) lets decoration covering no more than 15% of the surface be left out; decoration over that limit is not exempt. If its fibre is not stated and differs from the main fabric, the label must add “exclusive of decoration”. So a shirt labelled “100% cotton, exclusive of decoration” may carry embroidery in another fibre.

How do you tell good embroidery from poor embroidery?

Good embroidery lies flat on a stable ground, with every stitch interlocked and caught down. These checks take a minute:

1. Look at the face for the bobbin thread. On machine embroidery, specks of the underside thread showing on the right side mean the top tension was too tight.
2. Turn it over and look for loops. The wrong side of machine embroidery should be free of loops. Loops mean the top tension was too loose.
3. Lay it flat and check the ground around the motif. NMSU notes that fabric not held tight while stitched pops up and down, so the stitches fail to interlock. Permanent-press fabric tends to pucker if the stitches are not adjusted. Ripples around a motif point to either fault.
4. Feel behind dense motifs on light cloth. A firm, closely woven fabric gives the best results; lighter fabrics need a backing of another fabric or crisp paper. Dense stitching on a thin, unbacked ground is a red flag.
5. Check couched metal threads. Every laid thread should be held down by its couching stitches, with no loose lengths to snag.
6. Read the description of metal work. Zardozi today often uses imitation gold and silver because of cost, so “gold embroidery” does not by itself mean precious metal.