French Knot: How to Do It Step by Step

French Knot is a hand embroidery stitch that makes small raised dot. Makers reach for it for flower centers, eyes, dotted texture. 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 taut and wrap it around the needle once or twice. 3. Keeping tension, insert the needle next to (not into) the starting hole. 4. Slide the wraps down to the fabric and pull the needle through slowly while holding the thread. 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.

French Knot suits flower centers, eyes, dotted texture. To size a project before you start, the embroidery hoop size calculator will pick a hoop that holds the fabric drum tight.

The most common problems are: going back into the same hole so the knot pulls through; losing tension so the knot is loose; too many wraps, which makes a messy blob. 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.

Colonial Knot is the usual next step, because the colonial knot wraps in a figure eight instead, which gives a rounder and more consistent dot. It is rated intermediate here, against intermediate for french knot. Its own step-by-step page is at colonial knot.

Stitches closely related to french knot include Colonial Knot, Bullion Knot, Woven Wheel (Spider Web Rose). 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.