The french knot is a wonderfully versatile, decorative embroidery stitch. It involves making stitches in the form of small knotted dots, which can be used as a filler, pattern, or as the center of flowers. 

Brand new to embroidery? We recommend reading our Beginner's Guide to Embroidery first, and trying our Beginner Embroidery Kit. 

Prepare Your Thread

Select the desired embroidery yarn color. We recommend embroidering with our wool yarn, Array.

Thread the needle, doubling the yarn so you have an even length hanging on each side, and tie a small knot at the end.

Step 1: Starting the French Knot

• To start, bring your threaded needle up from the back of the fabric to the front until your knot hits the fabric. 

• Hold your needle in one hand with the tip pointed at the fabric about one inch above where you drew the thread up. 

• Use your other hand to wrap the thread around the shaft of the needle 2 or 3 times toward the tip. Maintain tension on the thread as you wrap.

Step 2: Continuing the French Knot

• Continue to hold the thread that you wrapped and put the tip of the needle back into the cloth, right next to the hole that you came out of. 

• Push the needle down, continuing to hold the thread in your non-stitching hand with a little tension. 

Step 3: Ending the French Knot

• Pull the needle down through the knot to the back of the fabric. 

• As the loop gets smaller, you can let the thread go just before you pull the thread tight with the needle. 

• Repeat for more French Knots! The more times you wrap the thread around the needle, the larger the knots will be. 

Video Instruction for Embroidering French Knot

Prefer to learn by video? Watch our step-by-step video teaching how to embroider the french knot.

Keep Going!

If you’re ready to learn more embroidery stitches, our Zollie Beginner Embroidery Kit has all of the materials, written and video instructions you need to complete 3 projects illustrated by Arounna Khounnoraj of Bookhou. It’s the perfect kit if you’re brand new to embroidery, or rusty with your skills and looking for some support. Come join us!