How to do Lazy Daisy Stitch

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Lazy Daisy stitch is ideal for making flowers and leaves – see how to do Lazy Daisy stitch with our guide!

Sew the prettiest of petals with one of our favourite embroidery stitches – want to learn how to do Lazy daisy Stitch? This stitch is perfect for growing your own pretty leaves, tendrils and flowers in your embroidery hoop.

Read on for our guide to how to do Lazy Daisy Stitch, then practise your skills with the free flowers embroidery pattern. Use backstitch for the lettering – check out our how to backstitch post if you’re new to this!

Using a hoop is practical as well as a pretty way to frame your finished stitching – it will help keep your fabric taut and your stitches neat.

How to do lazy daisy stitch step by step

Watch our video guide by Love Embroidery magazine to see how it’s done or scroll down for step by step instructions from the team at Simply Sewing.

Practise your stitches in a hoop and then scroll to the bottom of this post for our easy refashion idea to upcycle a plain shirt collar with lazy daisy details.

This Hello Petal hoop design and How to do Lazy Daisy stitch guide was originally published in Simply Sewing issue 4. If you want to follow along you will need to download and print our Lazy Daisy Stitch Embroidery Template

Template design by Louise day, stitching & instructions: Zoe Patching.

Step 1

Start by taking two strands of cotton from your cut thread length and thread your embroidery needle with one end and knot the other.

Bring your needle up through the fabric, then take it back down through the same hole to create a loop on the fabric’s surface.

Step 2

Pass the needle through the fabric with one hand and hold the loop on the surface with the other.

Make a securing stitch by bringing the needle back up through the fabric, about 0.5cm from your starting stitch.

Gently pull the thread to create a soft loop, as shown here.

Step 3

To anchor this first lazy daisy stitch to your fabric, make a tiny holding stitch over the loop you have just created, and pull the thread through to the reverse.

Try to avoid pulling your thread too firmly as you might distort the stitch and the fibres of your embroidery fabric.

Step 4

Your completed lazy daisy stitch should look like a tear drop as shown here, with softly rounded edges.

Lazy daisies can be worked in clusters to create floral shapes or singly. Try working a smaller lazy daisy stitch inside another for a pretty, more textured effect.

Step 5

Practise makes perfect! Now you’ve mastered the basics of how to do Lazy Daisy Stitch you can stitch a garden full of blooms with this flowers embroidery hoop art. Just download our free Lazy Daisy Stitch Embroidery Template and get making.

Embroider Lazy Daisy stitch onto a plain shirt collar

Now we’ve shown you how to sew a classic Lazy Daisy stitch with our floral design in a hoop, try stitching a similar design (also by expert sewist Zoë Patching) on a shirt collar. You’ll find the template for this design is also included on the Lazy Daisy Template.

Using thread in the colour of your choice, work the stem in backstitch, and follow the Lazy Daisy stitch instructions above. If you like the effect, it works equally well creating stitched details on pockets, cuffs and waistbands too.

Learn four more embroidery essentials

Learning a new stitches is so much more fun when you incorporate them into a project, so learn even more essential embroidery stitches with this pretty pincushion project.

Zoe Patching

Zoe is a freelance embroiderer and crafter with over 15 years’ experience on craft magazines. As well as designing and stitching her latest commissions, Zoe also teaches hand embroidery.

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