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The White, Black and Red History of Cross Stitch

June 27, 2024 by Sarah White

I will admit that I don’t know all that much about the history of cross stitch. I know it’s an offshoot of embroidery, which has been around for thousands of years, and that cross stitches were used in conjunction with all sorts of other embroidery stitches long before it became a technique used independently to cover fabric with a design.

The history of cross stitch intersects with other embroidery movements that can include cross stitch, too, like whitework, blackwork and redwork. Lord Libidan gives us the rundown of the history in a post on his site, adapted from an article written for XStitch magazine.

Whitework was worked with white thread on white linen, and sometimes involved cutting away the fabric and leaving the embroidery with no background. That kind of embroidery came to be only allowed for nobles and royalty in England, so a new style was needed for the masses.

Black stitch was a technique Catherine of Aragon brought from Spain to England, and while it wasn’t exclusively worked in cross stitches, it’s a step in the evolution to modern cross stitch that we know of today.

And as red thread became available from Turkey, redwork embroidery (and combinations of red and black in the same project) became really popular, and motifs were sold so that stitchers could create from standardized patterns.

From there, stitching began to be taught to children, and cross stitch, as we know it started to come into being.

It’s an interesting history and I’ve just scratched the surface here, so if you love history or just knowing where the crafts you enjoy came from, Lord Libidan’s post is definitely worth a read.

I also talk a little bit about blackwork and whitework in my post all about how to embroider over on Our Daily Craft if you want to learn a bit more!

[Photo: The Steady Thread]

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Go Back to Basics with Common Cross Stitch Terms

It’s back to school time where I live, which I always feel like is a great time to learn a new skill or take a deeper dive into something that you might not have learned a lot about before. 

Usually when we are learning new hobbies we only know what we know. We learn the terms that we encounter, the skills that come up in the projects that we want to make. It’s not that we don’t care about other basics or different approaches, we just learn what we need to know to make what we want to make. 

And that’s totally fine, but sometimes it’s a good idea to go back and review the basics or learn the things you might have missed the first time. 

In that spirit I share this post from Caterpillar Cross Stitch all about basic cross stitch terms that every stitcher ought to know. 

Did you know that the little bundle of thread you use for cross stitch is called a skein, for example? Or the difference between grid size and design area in a pattern? Or that working complete stitches one at a time is known as the English method? (I didn’t know that one! Apparently doing half of the stitch across the row and then coming back and finishing it is the Danish method. Who knew?)

There’s also a little bit about getting started with confidence that might be helpful at any skill level. 

So what I’m saying is, even if you feel like you know a lot about cross stitch already, head over to Caterpillar Cross Stitch and check out their list of terms and make sure you know them all. If nothing else you’ll feel a little smarter, either because you already knew them all or you learned something new!

And if you do learn something new, I’d love to hear about it.

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