Running stitch

What it is

The needle simply runs in and out of the fabric at even intervals, leaving a dashed line on the front. The gaps are not empty: that is thread on the back, which is why a long run of it uses far more floss than it looks like it should. Everything about how good it looks is in the evenness.

How to work it

1. Come up at the start of the line.
2. Go down one stitch length forward, and come up again one gap further on.
3. Load several stitches onto the needle before pulling through — weaving the needle in and out three or four times, then drawing it out, is what gives an even rhythm.
4. Keep the stitch and the gap the same all the way along.
5. On a curve, shorten both. The gap is what will give the curve away first.

What it is good for

• Delicate outlines where a solid line would be too heavy.
• Sashiko and other running-stitch traditions, where the dash IS the pattern.
• Quilting lines and texture across a background.
• A foundation to whip or lace afterwards — threaded running stitch starts here.
• Suggesting something rather than drawing it: a breeze, a shadow, the edge of water.

What goes wrong

• Uneven spacing. It is the one fault everybody sees, at any distance.
• Gaps longer than the stitches: past about equal, the line stops reading as a line and becomes a row of dots.
• Reaching for it when you actually wanted an unbroken outline — that is back stitch.

By the numbers

Stitch length

3 mm

Gap

1.6 mm

Thread on the back

35%of the run — the gaps are not empty

Stitches in this example

7counted from the drawing above, not estimated

Floss it would take

11 cmworking thread to cut, at 2 strands

Running stitch is laid as 3 mm stitches with a 1.6 mm gap, and the pattern’s thread estimate counts the gaps as thread on the back, because they are.

Watch it worked

Hand-picked from YouTube. Nothing loads from YouTube until you press play.