Arrowhead embroidery stitch: single, line and filler

Today is arrowhead's day!

What is this arrowhead, though?

It is a name of an embroidery stitch that can be used in many different ways: as a single isolated stitch (including powdering technique), as a line and as a filler.

Single arrowhead stitch

Working this stitch is a piece of cake. Just make two stitches that will meet at the bottom and form a corner.

(And here you might remember the fly stitch and think about how different and similar they are.)

So, like with seed stitch, you can vary the size and direction of stitches as well. My stitches here stand mostly upright but it doesn't have to be the case every time. You can experiment as much as you want, and even include various sizes of arrowhead stitch in one shape. Why not?

Line arrowhead stitch

You can work arrowhead stitch in a continuous line as well. There are two ways to do that. You can either put them below each other or beside each other.

To start a vertical line of arrowhead stitch, bring your thread in the center of a line, at the bottom of the first stitch. Then insert the needle at one of the top sides and bring it out on the opposite side.

Then insert the needle back to the first point and bring it out at one of the top sides again.

Insert it at the bottom and bring out at the opposite side on the top. And continue working the line in the following way. Frankly speaking, the order of work is not really important here – you can do it however you like. The most important is to keep the 3 imaginary lines of left, center, right consistent.

Or, you can also work arrowhead stitch next to each other forming a zigzag line.

Filler arrowhead stitch

Certainly, you can fill a shape with single arrowhead stitch by scattering it in a random order. But since it is pretty much the same as with seed stitch that we talked about last time, I didn't make an example for it.

Instead, here is an alternative way of how you can use arrowhead stitch as a filler.

Sorry, I'm not sure what type of shape that is (a balloon?? easter egg??), I just drew whatever came to my mind, haha. But anyway, as you see, you can make parallel lines of arrowhead stitch to create a pattern. You can also work it right on top of solid filling stitches – long and short stitch in this case – it will grant your needlework an interesting twist :)

That's all for today!

Which stitch are we going to talk about next time, hm? 🤔