How to satin stitch

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Satin stitch is a handy stitch to add to your embroidery skillset – use it to fill areas of a pattern and create bold areas of colour on your designs.

Satin stitch is a series of long, flat stitches that lie together over several blocks of aida (or threads of evenweave). The stitches are all parallel to each other, with no gaps in between them, creating a dense, smooth surface on your project.

To work satin stitch, just bring your needle up, then down again, across as many threads of the fabric as indicated on the chart.

Make sure you don’t pull the thread too tightly, as this will pucker your fabric. But don’t keep it too loose either, as you don’t want your stitches to sag! To keep an even tension, we recommend using an embroidery hoop, as this will hold your fabric taut and help you keep your stitches even.

Rebecca Reid

Rebecca is founder of Amber Makes and has previously worked as Senior Technical Editor of Love Embroidery and Simply Sewing magazines. She works with sewing TV channels including Sewing Street, Yarn Lane and Sewing Quarter. She been stitching since she was a child and has worked on many craft magazines as well as running her own curtain-making business. She is known by her colleagues as a sewing oracle – you name it, she can sew it. She’s hugely knowledgeable about sewing techniques, fabrics and tools and is full of helpful advice for her fellow sewists, from the best place to buy curtain-making materials to which books and websites are handy for that sewing problem you’re stuck on.

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