How to Backstitch: 3 Ways for Hand Embroidery

Bring the needle up at the start of your line. Take it down a stitch length ahead, in the direction you want to travel. A good stitch length is roughly half the width of your fingernail - any longer and the line starts to look gappy on tight curves.

Pull the floss all the way through. That single stitch is your anchor. Every backstitch row starts with this same forward stitch, no matter which of the three methods you pick.

Come up through the fabric one stitch length ahead of where the previous stitch ended. You're now sitting ahead of your last stitch with a small gap behind you - that gap is what you're about to fill.

This is the move that makes backstitch a backstitch. You always travel forward on the back, then sew backward on the front to close the gap.

Take the needle back down into the same hole where your previous stitch ended. Pull through. You now have two stitches butted up against each other on the front, with no gap between them.

That clean meeting point - no overlap, no space - is the whole reason backstitch makes such a good outline. Each new stitch closes the gap behind it.

Keep repeating: come up one stitch length ahead, go back down into the previous hole, pull through. This is the single-sided backstitch. The front looks clean and continuous. The back has small jumps between holes, not a covered line.

This is Elin's preferred version because it saves floss. The Charles and Elin architectural patterns are all worked this way. You get more meters of stitching out of every skein.

Same start - one forward stitch in the direction of travel. Now come up a stitch length ahead and go back down into the previous hole, exactly like the single-sided version. Here's the difference. Instead of jumping ahead under the fabric, take the needle back up a full stitch length ahead on the BACK side, then come back down to close the next gap.

You're going the full loop on the underside every time. The result is a covered line on both faces of the fabric. Flip the hoop over and the back looks almost as clean as the front.

This third version gets you the same double-sided coverage as Step 5, but in a single needle motion. Make your first stitch as normal. For each following stitch, scoop the needle: go down into the previous hole, then in the same pass, push the tip up through the fabric a stitch length ahead on the back side.

Pull through once. You've made the back leg and the front position in one motion instead of two. The placement of stitches is identical to the full-loop version - it's just faster because you're not pulling the floss all the way out between each step.

Big piece, lots of long lines, back won't be seen? Use the one-pass method. You'll cover ground twice as fast. Detailed architectural piece with tight contours? Use the single-sided version. Pulling through every stitch gives you more control over the line and saves floss on small work.

Linens, towels, or anything reversible? Use the full-loop or one-pass double-sided version so the back reads cleanly. The front looks the same in all three. The choice is about speed, control, and what the back has to look like.