French knots for beginners
I love a french knot, in fact the only thing I love more is a cluster of them. French knots are 3D and add texture to your embroidery.
A single french knot makes a perfect hair adornment or brooch on a dress or hat, even a flower centre
A cluster of french knots can embellish the hem of a dress as in the ballet dancer at the top of the page or you can use them to stitch fairy hair.
French knots can seem a little complicated but once you have the knack they are a very simple way to embellish your embroidery. Here are a few tips and a video to help you create perfect french knots
Tip one
You only wrap your thread around the needle once. If you want a bigger french knot you need to use more strands of thread. If you wrap your thread more than once you end up with a sort of toppling tall knot. When you use more strands of thread you have a nice fat knot that rests on the fabric. As you can see above each extra strand makes the knot fatter.
french knot tutorial
Tip two
tension is everything. When you pull the thread through with one hand you need to keep the thread in the other hand taut.
Tip three
Pull slowly. Firstly so that you can catch any tangle before it becomes an impossible knot but also so you don’t accidentally pull the whole knot right through your fabric
Pull the thread through from the back of your fabric to the front
Wrap the thread around the needle going away from you over the top of the needle and back underneath towards you
Holding the thread in your left hand taut put the needle back down into your fabric just next to the hole you came up through (don’t put it into the same hole as it will probably just pull right through)
Keep slowly pulling the thread through gradually letting go of the thread in your left hand as you get to the end
You should have a lovely french knot
The flowers in this flower pot are just shapes filled with french knots. Each flower is a different colour. The simplest shape to do this with is a circle
For pastels and pumpkins I wanted two colours in her hair. So first I dotted french knots in light grey inside the shape and along the outline. Then I filled the gaps with french knots in a darker grey
Another way to mix the colours up with french knots is to use strands of different colours.
For mother nature’s hair I used a single strand of red and one of brown held together to make the french knots. I also did this for the rest of the hair.
I hope you have found these tips useful and they give you confidence to try out some french knots as they are such a lovely stitch to use. I am sure that once you have the hang of it you won’t be able to stop yourself adding french knots to everything!
Please feel free to add any tips you have found useful in the comments section below
Kate
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