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Don’t Be Afraid of Adding Some Embroidery! Here’s How
Fear not—embroidery is much easier than it looks, and a few carefully selected stitches can go a long way toward making your knitted piece shine.
Knitting and embroidery have co-existed and sometimes intersected for centuries. Put down your knitting needles and pick up your embroidery needles to try out this useful and time-honored combination of needlework techniques. Embroidery brings enjoyable new techniques to learn, and it is a way to incorporate different yarns and textures into your work. Embroidery can be sophisticated—a simple ring of gold chain stitch encircling each cuff of a black sweater; traditional—lazy daisy leaves and French knots to accent the edges of a colorwork yoke: pictorial or geometric—duplicate stitch or cross stitch designs worked from graphs; or freeform and fabulous.
Top 10 Reasons to Embroider Your Knitting
Adding embroidery to your knitted piece can enhance it in so many ways:
1. Artistic elements
A few simple embroidery stitches can elevate your knitted piece into a custom garment, which is especially nice if you are knitting something that is a very popular knit.
2. Counted embroidery
Charted designs are a nice way to dip your toe into stitching on knits—each square on a chart corresponds to one square of stockinette stitch. Graphs are a perfect way to plan complex geometric elements. That adorable cross-stitch graph can translate beautifully into a cross-stitch motif for a baby cardigan or a duplicate stitch border on a vest for an adult. Just remember that stockinette stitches are slightly wider than they are tall.
3. Personalize your piece
Stitch on a logo, monogram, or motto, or if you are so inclined, a royal crest.
4. Visible mending
Hide those holes and mistakes with cheerful designs to breathe new life into an old garment.
5. Add warmth
Knitters from cold-weather countries knew the value of extra layers of yarn. An embroidered yoke or embellished mitten cuffs will add an extra level of heat to your clothing in a most attractive way.
6. Folk traditions
From needlework on Scandinavian color work to floral accents stitched onto Bavarian twisted stitches, knitters have been enhancing their humble knits with embroidery for centuries.
7. Fun with fiber
It is fun to play with specialty fibers, such as metallics, chenille, raffia, and silk that might not be strong enough to knit with but can add a couture look to your garment.
8. Use up short pieces of yarn
All of those lovely odds and ends you have saved can be put to good use, whether as a main element or as a tiny accent.
9. Revitalize an old knit
Tired of your cable sweater? Add some flowers amidst the twists and turns, or chain stitch the outlines along the side of geometric knit and purl patterns to add an edgy look. It’s a nice way to shop your closet and to have fun at the same time.
10. Cheat
Yep. Sometimes it is easier to use embroidery to fill in small areas of colorwork patterns, such as the few stitches in a third color in a row of stranded knitting, or the narrow diagonal lines in an argyle pattern.
Delicate embroidery can enhance a basic design, as in the Gaman Mittens by Susan Strawn. Photo by George Boe
Planning Your Embroidery
It is often easier to embellish your knitted fabric before you sew the pieces together. Use care when stitching lines of horizontal elements on clothing. Please make sure your embroidery doesn’t constrict the actual functionality of the fabric—you need to be able to put your arm through that cuff!
If you are working with a finished garment, wash and block it first. Blocking your piece first gives you a better sense of the tension you need to use when adding any embroidered elements.
Knitting and embroidery have co-existed and sometimes intersected for centuries. Put down your knitting needles and pick up your embroidery needles to try out this useful and time-honored combination of needlework techniques. Embroidery brings enjoyable new techniques to learn, and it is a way to incorporate different yarns and textures into your work. Embroidery can be sophisticated—a simple ring of gold chain stitch encircling each cuff of a black sweater; traditional—lazy daisy leaves and French knots to accent the edges of a colorwork yoke: pictorial or geometric—duplicate stitch or cross stitch designs worked from graphs; or freeform and fabulous.
Top 10 Reasons to Embroider Your Knitting
Adding embroidery to your knitted piece can enhance it in so many ways:
1. Artistic elements
A few simple embroidery stitches can elevate your knitted piece into a custom garment, which is especially nice if you are knitting something that is a very popular knit.
2. Counted embroidery
Charted designs are a nice way to dip your toe into stitching on knits—each square on a chart corresponds to one square of stockinette stitch. Graphs are a perfect way to plan complex geometric elements. That adorable cross-stitch graph can translate beautifully into a cross-stitch motif for a baby cardigan or a duplicate stitch border on a vest for an adult. Just remember that stockinette stitches are slightly wider than they are tall.
3. Personalize your piece
Stitch on a logo, monogram, or motto, or if you are so inclined, a royal crest.
4. Visible mending
Hide those holes and mistakes with cheerful designs to breathe new life into an old garment.
5. Add warmth
Knitters from cold-weather countries knew the value of extra layers of yarn. An embroidered yoke or embellished mitten cuffs will add an extra level of heat to your clothing in a most attractive way.
6. Folk traditions
From needlework on Scandinavian color work to floral accents stitched onto Bavarian twisted stitches, knitters have been enhancing their humble knits with embroidery for centuries.
7. Fun with fiber
It is fun to play with specialty fibers, such as metallics, chenille, raffia, and silk that might not be strong enough to knit with but can add a couture look to your garment.
8. Use up short pieces of yarn
All of those lovely odds and ends you have saved can be put to good use, whether as a main element or as a tiny accent.
9. Revitalize an old knit
Tired of your cable sweater? Add some flowers amidst the twists and turns, or chain stitch the outlines along the side of geometric knit and purl patterns to add an edgy look. It’s a nice way to shop your closet and to have fun at the same time.
10. Cheat
Yep. Sometimes it is easier to use embroidery to fill in small areas of colorwork patterns, such as the few stitches in a third color in a row of stranded knitting, or the narrow diagonal lines in an argyle pattern.
Delicate embroidery can enhance a basic design, as in the Gaman Mittens by Susan Strawn. Photo by George Boe
Planning Your Embroidery
It is often easier to embellish your knitted fabric before you sew the pieces together. Use care when stitching lines of horizontal elements on clothing. Please make sure your embroidery doesn’t constrict the actual functionality of the fabric—you need to be able to put your arm through that cuff!
If you are working with a finished garment, wash and block it first. Blocking your piece first gives you a better sense of the tension you need to use when adding any embroidered elements.
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Pick Your Knitted Fabric
Stockinette fabric in a smooth yarn, worked at a relatively small gauge, is good for beginning stitchers: it lends itself nicely to duplicate stitch and to surface embroidery. For your first duplicate-stitch piece, I recommend working on a light-colored fabric so you can see each knit stitch clearly.
Felted or fulled knitted fabrics have little stretch and are ideal for dense stitching. They are very easy to embroider on.
Lace, brioche, ribbing, cables, and twisted stitches all have natural lateral stretch, so they work well with smaller accents or vertical lines of stitching.
A few simple embroidery stitches take these intarsia knitted circles in the from so-so to sensational. Karin’s Swedish Circles, Pat Olski, PieceWork Spring 2021. Photo by Matt Graves
Select Your Threads
Follow these 5 steps to choose the right yarn or thread to stitch:
1. Make sure the fibers are appropriate for laundering. You don’t want to embroider a masterpiece on your easy-care, wash-and-wear baby sweater, only to find out that the homespun cotton yarn you used to embroider those wee daises will shrink in warm water and the sweater won’t.
2. Ditto for color fastness. A red fiber bleeding onto a white garment can bring tears to any stitcher’s eyes.
3. Choose fibers that will hold up with use. A luxury silk thread is not the best choice for a monogram on a cotton dishcloth.
4. Check the stretch if your embroidery needs to “move” with the garment. Cotton, linen, and silk threads or yarn might not be a good choice for certain elements on springy wool.
5. Choose your colors wisely. Will your embroidery thread or yarn peek through beneath light-colored fabric?
Arm Yourself with the Right Supplies
1. Needles
The needle must have an eye that is large enough to hold the embroidery yarn or thread without abrading it. Tapestry and chenille are generally the most useful, although a darner with a large enough eye is excellent for bullion knots. A tapestry needle has a blunt tip and is ideal for duplicate stitch, cross stitch, line stitches such as chain, stem, outline and running, and any other stitch that will not pierce the yarn of the knitted stitches. The pointed tip of the chenille needle makes it a good match for surface embroidery such as lazy daisy stitches, French and colonial knots, feather, and fly stitches on knitted fabric and felt.
2. Washable fabric transfer pencils or pens or wash-away transfer paper
Test this carefully on your swatch to make sure it does indeed wash away and doesn’t leave any permanent marks. You can also baste guide marks onto your knitting and cut them away later.
3. Backing fabric or light interfacing
They may be necessary if the knitted fabric is not dense enough to support a lot of needlework if you are planning to put a lot of embroidery in one section such as on the back of a mitten, or the yoke of a sweater. These can be basted behind the stitching area, and once the embroidery is completed you can carefully cut away any excess behind the knitting.
4. Sharp scissors to snip your threads
5. Embroidery hoop
A hoop can prevent hand fatigue and is especially useful for finer knits. You will need a hoop large enough to allow access to the area you wish to stitch. Tighten the hoop very gently and very carefully, as you do not wish to distort or damage the knitted fabric. In most instances, a hoop is not necessary, and it is better to roll the excess fabric out of the way and to lightly stretch the fabric as you are stitching so it doesn’t bunch up under the embroidery. Or, sometimes it can be helpful to use a piece of cardboard or cardstock inside a mitten or sleeve to hold it open and to prevent stitching through to the other side.
Make your argyle knitting easy by embroidering the contrasting lines in duplicate stitch at the end. August Argyles, Kate Larson, PieceWork Summer 2021. Photo by Matt Graves
A Few Stitches Are All It Takes
Start small—perhaps a simple couple of lazy daisy flowers or a few French knots. If you are a novice embroiderer, practice first on some scrap fabric, which won’t stretch, and then move on to practicing on a knitted swatch. It doesn’t take much time to add a few stitches to your knitting that can change the whole look of your garment. And it really is fun!
Pat Olski is the editor of PieceWork.
