Single Corded Brussels stitch is a needlelace stitch consisting of detached butthonhole stitches worked over a pre-existing outline.  After the first row of buttonhole stitches, a long thread (hence the name ‘corded’) is laid back across the stitched area and the next row is worked over both the preceding row and the laid thread.  The stitch can be worked densely by working the first row of buttonhole stitches closely together or as a more open stitch by spacing them further apart, as in the method below.  Within needlelace, these variations are sometimes known as close detached buttonhole stitch and open detached buttonhole stitch.  These two variations correspond to eighteenth and nineteenth lace stitches in Thérèse de Dillmont’s Encyclopedia of Needlework.

Single Corded Brussels Stitch is attached to the background fabric only at the edges. In the example below, a simple back stitch outline edge is used, but this could be a cordonnet when making a needlelace slip.

Single corded Brussels stitch has its origins in the Stone Age – vegetable fibre fabrics excavated in Denmark have been dated to 4200BC.  The stitch was used to weave a ‘needlemade fabric’, rather than being embellished on top of an existing fabric, but the structure of the stitch corresponds to what we know as Single corded Brussels.

More recently, it features as part of the Reticella tradition, a whitework technique from dating from the late-Medieval period.

For more background see the entry for Single brussels stitch.