Hand Embroidery Stitches | 21 Easiest for Beginners

Even if you have a sewing machine, there will be times when a pattern calls for some basic hand embroidery stitches. These are often used for decorative sewing and are great for faces on toy sewing patterns. Here I have put together 21 of the most common hand embroidery stitches for beginners to use.

HAND EMBROIDERY STITCHES

I have arranged this list of hand embroidery stitches alphabetically and added links to detailed tutorials from my blog if you would like to learn how to do each stitch.

Hand Embroidery Stitches #1 – Backstitch

Backstitch is a strong hand stitch generally used for stitching seams or for decoration. It is great for sewing doll mouths and noses. When hand stitching seams this is the perfect stitch where you want a strong and durable seam. The smaller your stitches, the stronger the seam will be.

Full Article: How to Backstitch

 Hand Embroidery Stitches #2 – Blanket Stitch

Blanket stitch can be used for sewing a decorative edge on blankets, toys and sewing projects. It can also be used to sew 2 pieces of fabric together and creates a nice strong seam in felt sewing projects. You will often see blanket stitch used with thicker embroidery threads.

Full Article: How to do Blanket Stitch

Hand Embroidery Stitches #3 – Buttonhole Stitch

Buttonhole stitch is similar to blanket stitch and can be used to make pretty wheels that can be used for flowers.

Full Article: How to do Buttonhole Stitch

Hand Embroidery Stitches #4 – Chain Stitch

Chain stitch can be used as a nice and thick outline stitch and is a commonly used straight stitch.

Full Article: How to do Chain Stitch

Hand Embroidery Stitches #5 – Chevron Stitch

Chevron is one of my favorite hand embroidery stitches due to its geometric shape. It is commonly used for borders.

Full Article: How to do Chevron Stitch

Hand Embroidery Stitches #6 – Couching Stitch

Couching is a method of over stitching thicker yarns or threads and can be done in eye-catching contrasting colors.

Full Article: How to do Couching

Hand Embroidery Stitches #7 – Cross Stitch

When people think of hand embroidery, this is often the first stitch that comes to mind. Tiny little cross stitches can be used to make entire intricate embroideries. There is something relaxing about just using the one stitch for a design.

Full Article: How to do Cross Stitch (includes single and double cross stitch)

Hand Embroidery Stitches #8 – Faggoting

Faggoting is a method of joining 2 pieces of fabric with stitches. It is often used along skirt borders and napkins.

Full Article: How to do Faggoting Embroidery

Hand Embroidery Stitches #9 – Feather Stitch

Feather Stitch is a beautiful stitch for stems and leaves. It looks a lot like coral to me. It can be structured and straight or free-flowing.

Full Article: How to do Feather Stitch

Hand Embroidery Stitches #10 – Fern Stitch

Fern stitch is another stitch that looks pretty for stems and leaves. It looks nice delicately scrolling across your design.

Full Article: How to do Fern Stitch

Hand Embroidery Stitches #11 – Fishbone Stitch

Fishbone stitch makes me think of fish skeletons but it is actually commonly used for leaves that have thick, dense padding and an interesting cross over effect along the center.

Full Article: How to do Fishbone Stitch

Hand Embroidery Stitches #12 – Fly Stitch

Fly Stitch is an interesting “Y” shaped stitch that can be joined together to form leaves.

Full Article: How to do Fly Stitch

Hand Embroidery Stitches #13 – French Knots

These little knots are really easy to do and make tiny flowers that are normally sewn in clusters.

Full Article: How to do French Knots

Hand Embroidery Stitches #14 – Herringbone Stitch

Herringbone stitch is geometric shaped and is commonly used for borders. It can be double or single.

Full Article: How to do a Herringbone Stitch and Double Herringbone Stitch

Hand Embroidery Stitches #15 – Lazy Daisy

Lazy Daisys are a flower creating stitch that can be used to make simple or multi petal flowers.

Full Article: How to do a Lazy Daisy

Hand Embroidery Stitches #16 – Running stitch

The running stitch is the easiest stitch for beginners due to its simple up and down motion. It is also the fastest stitch to sew. Similarly to backstitch, the smaller your stitches the stronger the seam. Running stitch can also be used for decorative purposes and is used in Japanese sashiko to create interesting wave-like effects.

Running stitch is not quite as strong as backstitch. For a stronger stitch used double thread.

Full Article: How to do Running Stitch

Hand Embroidery Stitches #17 – Satin stitch

Satin stitch is used for purely decorative purposes. Stitch flowers, leaves, circles – in fact, any shape you can think of. It is great for stitching eyes and cheeks on toys and dolls.

Create a frame to stitch within either with small straight stitches or removable pen or chalk then stitch from side to side.

Full Article: How to do Satin Stitch

Hand Embroidery Stitches #18 – Seed Stitch

Seed stitch (also called rice stitch) can be used as a decorative filling stitch or as a method of padding underneath satin stitch.

Full Article: How to do Seed Stitch

Hand Embroidery Stitches #19 – Stem Stitch

Stem stitch creates thick rope-like stitches that are great for stems, borders and geometric designs.

Full Article: How to do Stem Stitch

Hand Embroidery Stitches #20 – Straight Stitch

Straight stitch is not a single stitch but rather a collection of hand embroidery stitches. As the name implies, the stitches are done along a straight line with a single thread.

Full Article: How to do Straight Stitch

Hand Embroidery Stitches #21 – Web Stitch

Web stitch is a spiral-shaped stitch that can be used to look like radiating flowers. Use them as spider webs to make a spooky Halloween embroidery. They are created with an up and down weaving technique along the spokes.

Full Article: How to do Web Stitch

What will you be sewing with your basic hand embroidery stitches? Do you have another favorite not covered here? Please share it below.

MORE EMBROIDERY ARTICLES

1. Backstitch
2. Blanket Stitch
3. Buttonhole Stitch
4. Chain Stitch
5. Couching Embroidery Tutorial
6. Cross Stitch
7. Double Herringbone Stitch
8. Embroidery Basics
9. Faggoting Embroidery
10. Feather Stitch
11. Fern Stitch
12. Fishbone Stitch
13. Fly Stitch
14. French Knots
15. Hand Embroidery Stitches
16. Herringbone Stitch
17. Lazy Daisy
18. Running Stitch
19. Sashiko Embroidery
20. Satin Stitch
21. Seed Stitch Embroidery (Rice Stitch)
22. Stem Stitch
23. Straight Stitch
24. Web Stitch | Embroidery Tutorial
25. Whip Stitch