Featherstitch or feather stitch and Cretan stitch or faggoting stitch are
embroidery
Embroidery is the craft of decorating fabric or other materials using a needle to apply thread or yarn. Embroidery may also incorporate other materials such as pearls, beads, quills, and sequins. In modern days, embroidery is usually seen on c ...
techniques made of open, looped
stitches worked alternately to the right and left of a central rib.
[Reader's Digest ''Complete Guide to Needlework''. The Reader's Digest Association, Inc. (March 1992). , p. 39-41] Fly stitch is categorized with the featherstitches.
Applications
Feather stitch is a decorative stitch which is usually accompanied with embellishments. Cretan stitch is characteristic of embroidery of
Crete
Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...
and the surrounding regions.
[Christie, Grace: ''Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving'', London, John Hogg, 1912]
Open Cretan stitch or faggoting is used in making open decorative seams and to attach insertions.
Feather stitch embroidery arose in
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
in the 19th century for decorating
smock-frock
A smock-frock or smock is an outer clothing, garment traditionally worn by rural workers, especially shepherds and wagon, waggoners, in parts of England and Wales throughout the 18th century. Today, the word smock refers to a loose overgarment wor ...
s. It is also used to decorate the joins in
crazy quilting
The term "crazy quilting" is often used to refer to the Textile arts, textile art of crazy patchwork and is sometimes used interchangeably with that term. Crazy quilting does not actually refer to a specific kind of quilting (the needlework which ...
. It is related to (and probably derives from) the older
buttonhole stitch
Buttonhole stitch and the related blanket stitch are hand-sewing stitches used in tailoring, embroidery, and needle lace-making.
Applications
Traditionally, this stitch has been used to secure the edges of buttonholes. In addition to reinforci ...
and
chain stitch
Chain stitch is a sewing and embroidery technique in which a series of looped stitches form a chain-like pattern. Chain stitch is an ancient craft – examples of surviving Chinese chain stitch embroidery worked in silk thread have been dated ...
.
Variants
Common variants of featherstitch include:
[Enthoven, Jacqueline: ''The Creative Stitches of Embroidery'', Van Norstrand Rheinhold, 1964, ]
*Basic featherstitch
*Long-armed featherstitch
*Double featherstitch
*Closed featherstitch
*Chained feather stitch
*Cloud stitch
Stitch gallery
Image:Feather stitch2.gif, Featherstitch
Image:Feather stitch variations.jpg, Closed featherstitch as a couching stitch, left, and long-armed featherstitch, right
Image:Double feather stitch.gif, Double featherstitch
Image:Chained feather stitch.gif, Chained featherstitch
Looped stitches
Other looped stitches include:
*Cretan stitch or Open Cretan stitch or faggoting stitch
*Closed Cretan stitch
*Fishbone stitch
*Fly stitch,
a filling stitch made of single, detached tacked loops.
*Loop stitch
*Scroll stitch
Gallery
Image:Cretan stitch2.gif, Cretan stitch
Image:Cretan stitch.jpg, Closed Cretan stitch
Image:Cretan stitch variation.gif, Closed Cretan stitch
Image:Insertion.jpg, Faggotting with twisted Cretan stitch
Image:Fly stitch.jpg, Fly stitch
Image:Loop stitch.gif, Loop stitch
Image:Scroll stitch.gif, Scroll stitch
See also
*
Cross-stitch
Cross-stitch is a form of sewing and a popular form of counted-thread embroidery in which X-shaped stitches in a tiled, raster-like pattern are used to form a picture. The stitcher counts the threads on a piece of evenweave fabric (such as line ...
*
Embroidery stitch
In everyday language, a stitch in the context of embroidery or hand-sewing is defined as the movement of the embroidery needle from the back of the fibre to the front side and back to the back side. The thread stroke on the front side produced b ...
Notes
References
*Caulfield, S.F.A., and B.C. Saward, ''The Dictionary of Needlework'', 1885.
*Christie, Mrs. Archibald (Grace Christie), ''Embroidery and Tpestry Weaving'', London, John Hogg, 1912, online a
Project Gutenberg*Enthoven, Jacqueline: ''The Creative Stitches of Embroidery'', Van Norstrand Rheinhold, 1964,
*Reader's Digest, ''Complete Guide to Needlework''. The Reader's Digest Association, Inc. (March 1992).
{{embroidery
Embroidery stitches