What Do Stitch Names Mean?

Updated December 15, 2020.
Often in the naming of stitches, there is little in the way of standardization.

Sometimes a stitch is called one thing in one book and a different thing in another. Sometimes the same name refers to completely different stitches. And even the same stitch can appear with two different names in the same book.

To make matters worse, sometimes a stitch that looks the same can be made differently and gets different names because of that.

As a teacher and writer, I try to find names for the stitches I use, but sometimes there aren’t any. They may be new, as far as I know, or they may not have been named by the original designer.

I have developed standards of my own that I use when thinking of names of stitches. Here are some of them:

Reverse – A stitch that slants in the opposite direction of normal (i.e. lower right to upper left).
Alternating – The slant of the stitches of each unit switches between two directions, either vertical and horizontal, or normal and reverse.

Horizontal – Running in a horizontal direction; with the long side parallel to the ground.
Vertical – Running in a vertical direction; with the long side perpendicular to the ground.

These two are generally used for versions of Straight Stitches.

Giant – A version of the stitch that is larger than the normal size of the stitch. This term is not always applied consistently. Many stitches, such as Scotch come in many different sizes, so it’s a bit difficult to tell between normal and “giant.”

Tied – One or more parts of this stitch are tied to the canvas with additional stitches. Laidwork and tramme are both types of tied stitches, although often they don’t have this word in the name.

Woven – One or more parts of the stitch go over and under other parts of the stitch. Some woven stitches are actually woven in whole or in part, while other “woven” stitches get that way because of how they are constructed. Woven Cross would be an example of the first, while Six-trip Herringbone would be an example of the second.

Offset – Rows of this stitch are moved by one or more threads so they don’t line up on next to another. Making stitches of this kind seems to be a relatively new trend. It’s really great to use with stitches that are squares.

Variation – A modification of standard stitch in some way, often by the addition of other stitches. There are bazillions of stitch variations, so quite often these stitches don’t use this at all, but have a completely different name.

Framed – Having stitches surrounding units or groups of the stitch. Most of the time these are Tent Stitches, but BackStitches of Gobelin Stitches also occur fairly often. If a stitch is only partially framed, it is often called Half-Framed.

Exploded – Units or partial units of the stitch are separated by open threads

But you could see that using these terms could give you rather long names. If my name choice is Exploded Giant Alternating Offset Horizontal Cashmere, you could see why I might want to call it “Foobar Stitch.”