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Rococo stitch icon
Rococo stitch

  • Double square stitch
  • Queen stitch
Rococo stitch main image

Rococo stitch is used in canvaswork as a textured filling stitch. Four vertical stitches are couched down with small horizontal stitches to form a diamond shape.

Rococo stitch dates from at least the 17th century when it was normally knows as Queen’s stitch: it features on a panel exhibited by the Metropolitan Museum in New York and a casket now held by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.  Both examples are worked in silk to showcase the intricacy of the stitch.  It continued to be popular in the 18th century for chair seats and stools and smaller items such as pocketbooks and pincushions.  Historic examples normally have a slightly open appearance as the canvas pulls apart slightly where the points of the stitch meet.

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Couched Pattern Tied Filling Shading Canvaswork

Rococo stitch is generously sponsored by Countess Charles de Salis

Method

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Rococo stitch method stage 1 illustration
Rococo stitch method stage 1 photograph
1

Come up to the front of the canvas and go down over four threads above. Pull the stitch out of alignment and make a horizontal stitch across it as shown in the diagram.  The couching stitch should be two stitches up and two stitches across from the starting point - make sure that you stitch over the vertical canvas thread.

Rococo stitch method stage 2 illustration
Rococo stitch method stage 2 photograph
2

Bring the needle up at the same hole as the starting point, and go down in the same hole over four threads above.

Rococo stitch method stage 3 illustration
Rococo stitch method stage 3 photograph
3

Make a small horizontal stitch in the middle one thread over as shown.

The couching stitch should be two stitches up and one stitch across from the starting point.

Rococo stitch method stage 4 illustration
Rococo stitch method stage 4 photograph
4

Repeat and work two more vertical stitches with a small horizontal stitch across. Make sure these four vertical stitches share the same holes at the top and the bottom.

Rococo stitch method stage 5 illustration
Rococo stitch method stage 5 photograph
5

To continue, come up at the bottom 4 threads over to the left.

Rococo stitch method stage 6 illustration
Rococo stitch method stage 6 photograph
6

Continue the Rococo stitch as before.

Rococo stitch method stage 7 illustration
Rococo stitch method stage 7 photograph
7

The first row of Rococo Stitch

Rococo stitch method stage 8 illustration
Rococo stitch method stage 8 photograph
8

To begin the second row, bring the needle up at four threads down from the hole between the two Rococo stitches in the first row.

Rococo stitch method stage 9 illustration
Rococo stitch method stage 9 photograph
9

The first vertical stitch is couched with a small horizontal stitch as shown (this uses the same hole as the previous row).

Rococo stitch method stage 10 illustration
Rococo stitch method stage 10 photograph
10

Work from left to right.

Rococo stitch method stage 11 illustration
Rococo stitch method stage 11 photograph
11

Continue to the end of the row.

Rococo stitch method stage 12 illustration
Rococo stitch method stage 12 photograph
12

Two rows of Rococo stitch

Rococo stitch

Structure of stitch

Couched Pattern Tied

Common uses

Filling Shading

Embroidery Techniques

Canvaswork

Related Stitches

Couching French stitch

References

  • S. F. A. Caulfeild, Blanche C. Saward, The Dictionary of Needlework (1882) , p.192
  • Mary Thomas, Jan Eaton, Mary Thomas’s Dictionary of Embroidery Stitches (Revised Edition) (1989) , p.162
  • Mrs Archibald Christie, Samplers and Stitches (1921) , p.92–3, fig.146
  • Preston Remington. (1945) 'English Needlework Pictures', The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin pp.49-54. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3257161
  • 'Embroidered Casket', Victoria and Albert Museum (1999). Available at: http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O11096/embroidered-casket-edlin-martha/ (Accessed: 03 September 2021)
  • Mary Thomas, Mary Thomas’s Embroidery Book (1936) , p.43-4
  • Susan Burrows Swan, Plain & fancy : American women and their needlework, 1700-1850 (1977) , p.98
  • Betty Ring, Needlework : an historical survey (1975) , p.58