This is the simplest and most common stitch in canvaswork and the foundation for many other stitches. Tent stitch is a diagonal stitch, usually worked across a single intersection of canvas from bottom left to top right.

Tent stitch has various names, some reflect the size of the stitch (petit point, gros point) and some reflect the different ways of travelling between the stitches and the amount of thread used on the back of the canvas (basketweave tent stitch, half cross tent stitch, continental tent stitch).  This latter group are indistinguishable from the front of the canvas.

Petit point can be used as a synonym for tent stitch, but where it is used on double canvas it has a specific meaning: double canvas is woven with pairs of warp and weft threads so that the holes between the threads are not even.  This allows tent stitch to be worked over a single thread (which is called petit point) or over two warp and two weft threads (gros point, as it is considerably larger than the petit point?. A single gros point stitch covers the same area as four petit point stitches.  Double canvas is also known as ‘Penelope’ or duo canvas.

If tent stitch is described as ‘trammed’, this means it has a long thread laid along the top of the canvas and the tent stitches cover this thread to provide slightly padded coverage.  Tramming would normally be used with half cross tent stitch (which has the smallest amount of thread on the reverse).

The origins of the name ‘tent stitch’ are not clear, but it is possibly derived from the term ‘tent’ for an embroidery frame (most probably with similar etymological roots as tenter-hooks, the means for stretching cloth in the textile production process).  By the early 17th century in England, ‘tent stitch’ had replaced the French ‘petit point’.

The earliest evidence of tent stitch is on a late 4th/early 5th century tunic, excavated in Dush, Egypt.  Since then it has certainly been used around the world: Chefchaouen in Morocco has a long embroidery technique influenced by the 15th century arrival of Jewish and Muslim exiles from Spain; Chinese late 19th century Mandarin squares used it on gauze fabric, in Kohistan (north-western Pakistan) stitchers used it to embellish garments; 19th century Iranian Kerman embroiderers used it (possibly influenced by Kashmiri stitchers); in Arras, northern France, it was used with chenille thread in the late 19th century; 20th century Aleppo women used it as embellishment on their future bridegroom’s apparel.

In Britain it was employed in 13th century Opus Anglicanum, and by the 16th century Mary Queen of Scots (possibly influenced by her time at the French court) was using it in much of her needlework.  Examination of the contemporaneous Hardwick Hall embroideries has found that both basketweave and (trammed) half cross tent stitches were used.  The use of tent stitch continued through Queen Anne’s reign and was revived as a key part of 19th century Berlin wool work.