50 Fun Facts About Embroidery

Which invasion of England is told in the Bayeux Tapestry, a medieval strip of wool embroidery on linen?

The Norman Conquest fills the Bayeux Tapestry, which despite its name is an embroidery: its scenes are stitched onto the cloth, not woven into it.

Rosey Grier, a fearsome NFL defensive tackle, published a 1973 how-to book for men on which craft?

Needlepoint for Men was the book's title, and its author was one of the Los Angeles Rams' original Fearsome Foursome, among the best defensive lines in football history.

Which celestial visitor is stitched into the upper border of the Bayeux Tapestry as a star with a streaming tail?

Halley's Comet, as the star is now known to be, has no earlier surviving portrait: the stitched version is the first known picture of it.

Which tennis champion, nicknamed after a reptile, wore it embroidered on his blazer and later on his polo shirts?

René Lacoste was nicknamed 'the Crocodile', and the crocodile his friend Robert George designed for his match blazer became the signature logo of his clothing company.

Which heroine of American literature earns a living by fine sewing and wears a beautifully embroidered scarlet 'A'?

Hester Prynne, in Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter, is sentenced to wear the letter for life, yet her stitching is of such extraordinary quality that it supports her and her daughter.

Embroiderers from which Hampton Court Palace institution stitched the lace onto Kate Middleton's wedding dress?

The Royal School of Needlework hand-appliquéd machine-made lace flowers onto silk net for the 2011 dress, and it also embroidered robes for the 1953 and 2023 coronations.

Which imprisoned monarch spent years of English captivity embroidering the Oxburgh Hangings alongside Bess of Hardwick?

Mary, Queen of Scots, stitched the panels between about 1570 and 1585 while she was held in the custody of Bess's husband, the Earl of Shrewsbury.

The Overlord Embroidery, a 34-panel modern answer to the Bayeux Tapestry, tells the story of which wartime operation?

The D-Day landings of 6 June 1944 were stitched between 1968 and 1974, deliberately echoing the medieval work that shows an invasion crossing the Channel the other way.

Which small pitted cup, worn to guard a finger from the needle, is named from the Old English for thumb?

A thimble could even serve a war effort: during the First World War, Britain collected silver ones and melted them down to buy hospital equipment.

Which tool, earlier known as a tambour frame, keeps fabric taut while it is embroidered?

A hoop is small enough to rest in the lap and is moved along as the work grows; early ones were made of wood, bone or ivory.

What name is given to the embroidered test piece of alphabets, motifs and borders once stitched as a classroom exercise?

A sampler takes its name from the Latin exemplum, meaning example, and stitchers often added their own name and the date to the finished piece.

In Shakespeare's Othello, which fruit is embroidered on the handkerchief Iago uses to make Desdemona look unfaithful?

Strawberries, red on white, decorate the first gift Othello gave his wife; Iago plants the handkerchief in Cassio's lodgings as false proof of an affair.

Which foreign-born bride of an English king was long credited with bringing blackwork embroidery over among her clothes?

Catherine of Aragon was believed to have packed blackwork garments when she left Spain, which is why the style was long known as Spanish work.

Which embroidery style, worked in fine two-ply wool, was used to stitch the Bayeux Tapestry and Jacobean bed hangings?

Crewel is defined only by its wool thread, so any stitch may be used, and emigrants carried the craft from England to colonial New England.

Which Japanese craft of white running stitches on indigo cloth has a name meaning 'little stabs'?

Sashiko began in the Edo period as a practical way to strengthen and patch homespun clothes, using the white cotton and blue cloth that were cheapest to hand.

Hardanger embroidery, geometric white stitching and cutwork on white linen, is named after a district of which country?

Norway's Hardanger district, in the west of the country, knew the craft simply as hvitsøm, or whitework, and at first used it only as trim on garments.

The vyshyvanka, an embroidered shirt honoured with its own day each May, is part of which country's national costume?

Ukraine's Vyshyvanka Day began in 2006 with a student at Chernivtsi National University and is celebrated on the third Thursday of May.

Chikankari, delicate white embroidery on light muslin and cotton, is the best-known textile craft of which Indian city?

Lucknow sells the work mainly through its Chowk market, and the most popular origin story credits the Mughal empress Noor Jahan with introducing the craft.

Phulkari, whose name means 'floral work', is the silk-on-cotton folk embroidery of which South Asian region?

Punjab mothers and grandmothers traditionally began a girl's phulkari when she was born, and the finished pieces became part of her wedding trousseau.

Kantha, the running-stitch embroidery of Bengal, traditionally recycles layers of which worn-out garments into quilts?

Saris worn soft with age were layered and stitched together by women in Bengal to make light blankets, throws and bedspreads, especially for children.

Shisha embroidery, which arose in 17th-century India, decorates cloth by stitching down small pieces of what?

Mirrors replaced the beetle wings and chips of mica that poorer people had used to imitate the jewelled clothes of the wealthy.

Tenango embroidery, filled with animals, flowers and trees stitched by Otomi artisans, comes from which country?

Mexico's Tenango style is younger than it looks: Otomi villagers in Hidalgo developed it for sale in the 1960s after a drought wrecked their farming economy.

Which embroidery technique, named after a farm labourer's work shirt, gathers fabric so that it can stretch?

Smocking did the job of elastic before elastic existed, shaping cuffs, bodices and necklines where buttons were not wanted.

Which embroidery filling covers a shape with flat, closely laid threads and is imitated by a machine's zigzag?

Satin stitch is also called damask stitch, and embroiderers often outline a shape before filling it so that the smooth surface keeps a clean edge.

Tambour work, made with a fine hook on net stretched tight over a frame, is named from the French for what?

Drum is what tambour means: the net is stretched over the frame, and a fine pointed hook reaches through it to draw the working thread into loops.

Roughly how long is the Bayeux Tapestry, which was embroidered on nine linen panels later sewn together?

About 70 metres of linen survive, and scholars suspect that a final panel showing a coronation has been lost from the end.

Sukajan, the embroidered souvenir jackets of post-war Japan, were first made by local craftspeople for which customers?

American servicemen stationed around the Yokosuka naval base ordered them as keepsakes, and silk shortages meant some were sewn from leftover parachute silk.

Which court painter of Henry VIII, whose sitters wear blackwork trim, has an embroidery stitch named after him?

Hans Holbein the Younger painted the king and his children in blackwork so often that the reversible line stitch, identical on both sides of the cloth, took his name.

Which young Tudor, aged eleven, is thought to have embroidered the cover of a book for her stepmother Katherine Parr?

Elizabeth I, then a princess, had also translated the French poem inside and written it out in her own hand; the book is now in the Bodleian Library.

Jacobean embroidery, known for its Tree of Life and stylized forests, is named after the reign of which king?

James I reigned in the first quarter of the 17th century, when embroidered jackets were fashionable for men and women alike; several of them survive.

Lesage, the Paris embroidery atelier used by Schiaparelli and Yves Saint Laurent, became part of which fashion house?

Chanel herself never wanted to work with the atelier because her rival Elsa Schiaparelli was its faithful customer; it now belongs to the house's Paraffection subsidiary.

Tatreez, embroidery on the traditional thobe dress that UNESCO recognised in 2021, is a tradition of which people?

Palestinians could once tell a wearer's home from her dress: historically each village had its own patterns, drawn from local legends, animals, plants and beliefs.

Story cloths, embroidered scenes first made in 1970s refugee camps in Thailand and Laos, are the art of which people?

The Hmong had long embroidered patterned 'flower cloth'; the story cloths added figures and fragments of text to record the Secret War and the flight from Laos.

Zardozi, heavy metal-thread embroidery favoured by the Mughal elite, takes its name from words in which language?

Persian zar means gold and dozi means sewing, and the work once covered the walls of rulers' tents and the trappings of their elephants and horses.

Suzani, large embroidered textiles that brides made for their dowries and gave to the groom, come from which region?

Central Asia has a very old suzani tradition in countries such as Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, yet the pieces are so delicate that few survive from before the late 1700s.

Which city in Jiangsu province gives its name to one of China's four major regional embroidery styles?

Suzhou embroidery has a history of some 2,000 years, and its rarest form is double-sided work, which demands the highest skill.

Which thread company, whose embroidery cotton is sold worldwide, was founded in Mulhouse, France, in 1746?

DMC stands for Dollfus-Mieg et Compagnie; it only added thread in 1841, the speciality that went on to make the company's reputation.

Which 17th-century English embroidery style pads and wires its figures so they stand up from the cloth in relief?

Stumpwork was the final and hardest test for a 17th-century student of embroidery: an elaborate casket covered in raised scenes, which a carpenter then mounted and assembled.

Which technique, the usual way to attach metal threads, lays them on the fabric and fastens them with small stitches?

Couching also fills the figures of the Bayeux Tapestry, where threads laid side by side are held down by another thread crossing them at right angles.

Which looped embroidery technique survives on Chinese silks from the Warring States period, over two thousand years ago?

Chain stitch never needs the needle to pass through more than one layer of cloth, which makes it handy for decorating finished fabric close to a seam.

Broderie anglaise, a whitework popular in 19th-century England, is recognised by patterns made up of which feature?

Eyelets are round or oval holes cut from the fabric and bound with stitches; despite its English label, the technique probably began in what is now the Czech Republic.

Opus Anglicanum, the luxurious medieval embroidery prized across Europe, survives mostly as which kind of object?

Church vestments such as copes and chasubles dominate what survives, and a Vatican inventory of 1295 listed more pieces from England than from any other country.

Which stiff cotton fabric, also called Java canvas, is woven as an open grid that makes stitches easy to count?

Aida cloth is sold by its count, the number of squares to the inch, so a higher count gives smaller and finer stitches.

Bargello embroidery, famous for its zigzag flame patterns, is named after chairs in a palace in which Italian city?

Florence's Bargello palace holds the chairs, yet Italians call the technique Hungarian point, a sign that Florentines believed it had come from Hungary.

Which Italian town gave its name to embroidery in which the background is stitched and the motif is left blank?

Assisi revived the old technique at the turn of the 20th century through a workshop set up to give poor women a way to add to their incomes.

The Schiffli embroidery machine of 1863 takes its Swiss German name from a shuttle shaped like what?

A boat is the shape of the shuttle that carries the bobbin thread; the machine made a lock stitch like a sewing machine and grew to use more than 600 needles.

Mountmellick work, white embroidery of blackberries, oak and ferns with a knitted fringe, comes from which country?

Ireland's Mountmellick, a town in County Laois, gave the craft its name after Johanna Carter developed it around 1825 and taught it to about 15 women and girls.

What is the term for turning artwork into the stitch file that a computer-controlled embroidery machine follows?

Digitizing replaced the older craft of punching: before computers were affordable, designs were punched into paper tape that ran through the machine.

Tapestry needles, used on canvas and even-weave fabric, differ from sewing needles in having a large eye and what?

A blunt tip lets the needle slip between the threads of loosely woven fabric without catching or tearing them.

Which religious group's history is told in 77 embroidered panels kept at a meeting house in Kendal, England?

The Quakers borrowed from the Bayeux Tapestry for their own: each panel has three horizontal bands, with outlined faces and hands and solidly filled clothing.