Colonial Knot: How to Do It Step by Step

Colonial Knot is a hand embroidery stitch that makes neat raised knot, rounder and more consistent than a French knot. Makers reach for it for candlewicking, dots, flower centers. It is rated intermediate here, so it helps to be comfortable with the basic stitches first and to practice on a swatch before a project.

1. Bring the needle up where the knot should sit. 2. Hold the thread in your other hand and place the needle tip under the thread, so the thread crosses over the needle. 3. Wrap the thread over and then under the needle tip, forming a figure-eight. 4. Insert the needle next to the starting hole. 5. Snug the knot down around the needle, then pull through while holding tension. Work slowly for the first few repeats, keep your tension even, and check the result against the steps before continuing across a whole row or motif.

The most common problems are: wrapping in a circle instead of a figure-eight; releasing tension too early. Most are easy to spot if you pause after a few repeats and compare your work with the steps. Good light helps a great deal, especially with dark yarn or thread.

Stitches closely related to colonial knot include French Knot, Bullion Knot. Learning them together makes patterns easier to read, because many designs switch between related stitches to change texture, height or line. Each has its own step-by-step page in the stitch dictionary.