Today’s tutorial is all about the French knot which is one of my favourite embroidery stitches. They are so effective and quite addictive too. Working a few French knots together creates greater impact, whilst a singular knot can be used for finer details. I know lots of people struggle with French knots, but they are easy to achieve, if you follow a few simple steps. Hopefully today’s tutorial will help, and you will love French knots by the end of this tutorial!
French knots often appear somewhere in my embroidery designs. I love using them in the centre of flowers, and they also work well to imitate the look of a flower bud. Here's a few photos of my embroidery designs where I have used French knots. From left to right: Betty heart embroidery kit, Willow embroidery kit, Clara embroidery kit, Flora heart embroidery kit.
French knot step-by-step tutorial:
Materials:
· Fabric – cotton or linen fabric works well. I used osnaburg fabric which is 100% seeded cotton, but you can use any spare fabric you already have.
· Stranded embroidery thread
· Needle
· Scissors
Optional:
· Embroidery hoop
Just for your reference, during this tutorial I am using osnaburg 100% cotton seeded fabric, black DMC stranded cotton embroidery thread, a hand embroidery needle and a 5” DMC beechwood embroidery hoop.
1. Thread your needle using stranded embroidery thread. For this tutorial I start by using all six strands of DMC stranded embroidery thread. You can choose how many strands of embroidery thread you would like to work with. The number of threads will determine the size of your French knot.
2. Bring your needle through from the back of the fabric to the front at point 1.
3. Hold the needle in one hand and hold the thread taught in your other hand.
4. Wrap the thread around the needle twice.
5. Keep the thread taught and put the needle back into the fabric, just next to the point where you came up through the fabric, but not the same hole.
6. Keep the thread taught as you push the needle into the fabric and pull through to the back.
7. Pull the needle all the way through the fabric, whilst keeping the thread taught in your other hand, until the stitch has formed.
8. Your French knot is now complete.
9. Continue to work a few more French knots to practice the stitch.
10. Change the number of threads you work with to make a bigger or smaller French knot. I used six strands of thread for the top line of French knots, four strands for the middle line of French knots and two strands for the bottom line.
French knot video tutorial:
I hope you have found this tutorial helpful. If you have any questions please leave a comment below or message via social media.
Happy stitching!
Hannah x
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