Art embroidery glossary
The words of the craft, plainly defined. Each term links to the article or the artworks where it lives.
- Art embroidery
- Embroidery practiced for its own sake, as an artistic discipline, as opposed to utilitarian or machine embroidery. It gathers the demanding atelier techniques: needle painting, Lunéville crochet, goldwork, beadwork. See the art embroidery works →
- Chain stitch
- A run of loops in which each one locks the previous, forming a continuous chain. It is the stitch the Lunéville hook produces, and the reason for its speed: the thread is never pulled fully through the fabric. Read the article Tambour and Lunéville embroidery →
- Contemporary embroidery
- Embroidery conceived as an autonomous artwork rather than decoration for something else. The stitches are old; the intent is new: to be looked at the way a painting is. Read the article Contemporary embroidery →
- Couching
- Fixing a thread laid on the surface with small stitches of a finer thread, without ever pulling it through. This is how gold thread is applied, too stiff and too precious to be stitched through. In French: couchure. Read the article Goldwork embroidery →
- Flocked leather
- Leather whose surface carries a nap of fibres, matte and deep. One of the signature materials of the studio’s abstract canvases. See the embroidered artworks →
- Long and short stitch
- The shading stitch: rows of stitches, each coming up through the stitches of the previous row, encroaching on them, so no seam shows between shades. In French: passé empiétant. Read the article Thread painting and needle painting →
- Lunéville hook
- A fine pointed hook on a wooden handle that pierces the taut fabric and pulls the thread up in chain stitch. The tool of Lunéville embroidery and haute couture; it also applies pre-strung beads and sequins, working from the back of the fabric. Read the article Tambour and Lunéville embroidery →
- Needle painting
- Realistic gradients built in long and short stitch, one strand at a time, until the fabric is fully covered. Needle painting, thread painting and silk shading name the same technique. Read the article Thread painting and needle painting →
- Or nué
- Gold threads laid side by side across the whole motif, couched with colored silk: dense where color is wanted, sparse where the gold should shine. The image is made by the spacing of the stitches. Read the article Goldwork embroidery →
- Organza
- A thin, crisp, transparent fabric, often silk. The classic ground of Lunéville embroidery: its transparency lets you see the hand working under the frame. Read the article Tambour and Lunéville embroidery →
- Passing thread (filé)
- The classic gold thread: a very fine strip of gilded metal wound in a spiral around a silk core. Too fragile to pass through fabric, it is applied by couching. In French: filé. Read the article Goldwork embroidery →
- Pearl purl (jaseron)
- A metal wire coiled into a stiff spring that looks like a row of tiny beads. Laid whole and couched down between its coils. In French: jaseron. Read the article Goldwork embroidery →
- Point de Lunéville
- The beaded variant of Lunéville embroidery, born around 1865: beads and sequins pre-strung on the thread, placed one by one by the hook, working from the back of the fabric. Read the article Tambour and Lunéville embroidery →
- Purl (cannetille)
- A very fine metal wire coiled into a tight spring, forming a soft hollow tube. It is cut into segments and threaded like beads, sewn through the hollow core. In French: cannetille. Read the article Goldwork embroidery →
- Raffia
- A matte, supple plant fibre from a palm. Embroidered next to silk and gold, it brings a vegetal dullness that makes their shine stand out. See the embroidered artworks →
- Split stitch
- A stitch that pierces the thread of the previous stitch, splitting it. As a fine outline under needle painting, it raises the edge and makes the silhouette crisp. In French: point fendu. Read the article Thread painting and needle painting →
- Stretched canvas
- Painter's canvas stretched on its wooden frame. An unusual ground for embroidery, it lets the work hang like a painting, without glass, the relief of the stitches alive in raking light. Read the article Contemporary embroidery →
- Tambour embroidery
- Chain stitch worked with a hook on fabric stretched drum-tight. The umbrella term; Lunéville embroidery is its French couture branch. Read the article Tambour and Lunéville embroidery →