Palestrina stitch tutorial

If you dream about a pearl necklace but can't have one... stitch one! :)

Today we are going to learn palestrina stitch, which I'm totally in love with. Unfortunately, I still didn't find a way to incorporate it in my designs, but let's hope that one day an idea will come to me :)

In my mind, palestrina stitch likes thicker thread because it allows creating more volume in the knots and they start reminding beads in a necklace.

In this tutorial, I'm using 2 strands of embroidery floss.

Palestrina stitch tutorial

In this tutorial, we will be moving from the right to the left. So, first, you need to come up through the fabric at the starting point of the line. And then grab a bit of fabric further down the line in a perpendicular manner. When you grab it you insert the needle on the line, or just a bit lower the line, and come up a bit above the line.

Notice that the needle is facing upwards (compare to the scroll stitch we learned last time).

After you pull the thread through, you will need to slide the needle under the horizontal stitch that you got.

In steps like these, I will show you directions with arrows because I will be moving my needle with the eye forward as to not grab on the thread fibers, because I'm using a sharp one, not a blunt one.

So now we slide the needle under the stitch.

Now we will need to slide it between these two “legs”, under the lowest one.

Sliding the needle following the direction of the arrow. Notice that the working end if the thread goes under the needle here. This is a crucial point, if you forget to tuck it under the needle, the knot will look different.

And here you go. Palestrina knot!

Continue working the line the same way.

And here are examples of two finished lines.

As you see, in one of them the knots are closer to each other – it is just a matter of the size of the very first stitch you take, in step 1. If you make it shorter, the beads will stick closer to each other.

And also, it was not my intention to make the upper line wavy (it is just a consequence of having not marked the line as usual) but it serves a good demonstration, that knotted line stitches like this can be used not only on a straight line, but also wavy, curvy lines, swashes and swooshes – you know what I mean. A tight curve might be a bit more struggling, but still possible.

I hope you fall in love with this stitch just like I did! And we still have one more stitch ahead of us this month, so look forward to it :)