Chain Stitch
for Hand Embroidery

The chain stitch in hand embroidery has a similar finished look to the overlaid chain stitch in crochet. In embroidery, to get the desired effect, you have to first create a circle, and then use an additional stitch to tack it into place.

Knot your thread. Insert your needle from behind. Pull tight. Insert your needle back into the same place you came up in.

Note: In my example, for my first stitch I insert my needle to the side of where I came up. You can see in the finished picture at the top of the page the opening left in the chain. This could give you a different look of open “horseshoes”, but it ruins the effect of a closed chain.

Make sure to leave a small loop of thread on the top of your work. Insert your needle from behind into the center of the loop. As you pull your thread tight, it will catch the loop, “locking” it in place, and prevent it from being pulled back through your fabric. Do not pull the thread too tightly, that will straighten out the loop and make it look like a thick line, and not a loop at all.

Insert your needle back into the loop into the same place you came up. Pull until a small loop is left. Continue creating and “locking” your loops in the same way until your desired area is finished.

To finish this stitch, you will have to lock your last loop in place. Bring your needle up through the last loop, but instead of inserting your needle back into the center loop this time, insert in over the last loop and back into where you came up. (See the Lazy Daisy Stitch for more detailed pictures of this tacking stitch.)

Bring your working thread to the back of your project and tie off. The finished product will be a line of interlocked loops forming a chain. The more you practice, the more uniform your stitches will become.

You can change up the chain stitch by creating different sized loops, or alternating larger and smaller loops. You can also use this stitch over the top of the couching stitch to get a unique look.

Note: If you use this method with couching, I would recommend tacking your couching down first, then adding this chain over top of it. It’s a little tricky to try and get this stitch to hold your couched thread in place securely. In order to use this stitch only, you have to tack the beginning and the end before starting the chain stitch, and the thread in between is held in place lightly by the loops.)

Next stitch: Couching Stitch

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