Embroidery
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50 free Embroidery trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Embroidery is one of the oldest ways people have decorated cloth, and its history is full of surprises. A famous medieval 'tapestry' is really stitched rather than woven, rulers and prisoners have passed their days with a needle, and a football star once wrote a how-to book for men. This quiz covers the history and trivia of embroidery from every side: celebrated works, the names of stitches and techniques, the tools of the trade, and regional traditions from Europe, Asia and the Americas. You will also meet embroidery in literature, fashion and sport. It suits stitchers who want to test what they know, quiz hosts planning a craft round, and anyone curious about the stories sewn into cloth. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which invasion of England is told in the Bayeux Tapestry, a medieval strip of wool embroidery on linen?
The Norman Conquest
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.
Q 02Rosey Grier, a fearsome NFL defensive tackle, published a 1973 how-to book for men on which craft?
Needlepoint
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.
Q 03Which celestial visitor is stitched into the upper border of the Bayeux Tapestry as a star with a streaming tail?
Halley's Comet
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.
Q 04Which tennis champion, nicknamed after a reptile, wore it embroidered on his blazer and later on his polo shirts?
René Lacoste
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.
Q 05Which heroine of American literature earns a living by fine sewing and wears a beautifully embroidered scarlet 'A'?
Hester Prynne
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.
Q 06Embroiderers from which Hampton Court Palace institution stitched the lace onto Kate Middleton's wedding dress?
Royal School of Needlework
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.
Q 07Which imprisoned monarch spent years of English captivity embroidering the Oxburgh Hangings alongside Bess of Hardwick?
Mary, Queen of Scots
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.
Q 08The Overlord Embroidery, a 34-panel modern answer to the Bayeux Tapestry, tells the story of which wartime operation?
The D-Day landings
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.
Q 09Which small pitted cup, worn to guard a finger from the needle, is named from the Old English for thumb?
A thimble
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.
Q 10Which tool, earlier known as a tambour frame, keeps fabric taut while it is embroidered?
A hoop
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.
Q 11What name is given to the embroidered test piece of alphabets, motifs and borders once stitched as a classroom exercise?
A sampler
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.
Q 12In Shakespeare's Othello, which fruit is embroidered on the handkerchief Iago uses to make Desdemona look unfaithful?
Strawberries
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.
Q 13Which foreign-born bride of an English king was long credited with bringing blackwork embroidery over among her clothes?
Catherine of Aragon
Q 21Shisha embroidery, which arose in 17th-century India, decorates cloth by stitching down small pieces of what?
Mirrors
Mirrors replaced the beetle wings and chips of mica that poorer people had used to imitate the jewelled clothes of the wealthy.
Q 22Tenango embroidery, filled with animals, flowers and trees stitched by Otomi artisans, comes from which country?
Mexico
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.
Q 23Which embroidery technique, named after a farm labourer's work shirt, gathers fabric so that it can stretch?
Smocking
Smocking did the job of elastic before elastic existed, shaping cuffs, bodices and necklines where buttons were not wanted.
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.
Q 14Which embroidery style, worked in fine two-ply wool, was used to stitch the Bayeux Tapestry and Jacobean bed hangings?
Crewel
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.
Q 15Which Japanese craft of white running stitches on indigo cloth has a name meaning 'little stabs'?
Sashiko
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.
Q 16Hardanger embroidery, geometric white stitching and cutwork on white linen, is named after a district of which country?
Norway
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.
Q 17The vyshyvanka, an embroidered shirt honoured with its own day each May, is part of which country's national costume?
Ukraine
Ukraine's Vyshyvanka Day began in 2006 with a student at Chernivtsi National University and is celebrated on the third Thursday of May.
Q 18Chikankari, delicate white embroidery on light muslin and cotton, is the best-known textile craft of which Indian city?
Lucknow
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.
Q 19Phulkari, whose name means 'floral work', is the silk-on-cotton folk embroidery of which South Asian region?
Punjab
Punjab mothers and grandmothers traditionally began a girl's phulkari when she was born, and the finished pieces became part of her wedding trousseau.
Q 20Kantha, the running-stitch embroidery of Bengal, traditionally recycles layers of which worn-out garments into quilts?
Saris
Saris worn soft with age were layered and stitched together by women in Bengal to make light blankets, throws and bedspreads, especially for children.
Q 24Which embroidery filling covers a shape with flat, closely laid threads and is imitated by a machine's zigzag?
Satin stitch
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.
Q 25Tambour work, made with a fine hook on net stretched tight over a frame, is named from the French for what?
Drum
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.
Q 26Roughly how long is the Bayeux Tapestry, which was embroidered on nine linen panels later sewn together?
About 70 metres
About 70 metres of linen survive, and scholars suspect that a final panel showing a coronation has been lost from the end.
Q 27Sukajan, the embroidered souvenir jackets of post-war Japan, were first made by local craftspeople for which customers?
American servicemen
American servicemen stationed around the Yokosuka naval base ordered them as keepsakes, and silk shortages meant some were sewn from leftover parachute silk.
Q 28Which court painter of Henry VIII, whose sitters wear blackwork trim, has an embroidery stitch named after him?
Hans Holbein
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.
Q 29Which young Tudor, aged eleven, is thought to have embroidered the cover of a book for her stepmother Katherine Parr?
Elizabeth I
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.
Q 30Jacobean embroidery, known for its Tree of Life and stylized forests, is named after the reign of which king?
James I
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.