Crafts

Embroidery

Citation Formats

General Reference

Home, Crafts and Hobbies Atlas. "Embroidery." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://dev-home.interactiveatlas.org/crafts/embroidery.

APA Style

Home, Crafts and Hobbies Atlas. (n.d.). Embroidery. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://dev-home.interactiveatlas.org/crafts/embroidery

BibTeX

@misc{home,craftsandhobbiesatlas-embroidery,
  author = {Home, Crafts and Hobbies Atlas},
  title = {Embroidery},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://dev-home.interactiveatlas.org/crafts/embroidery},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

Decorating fabric with needle and thread, from a beginner's sampler to the Bayeux Tapestry, which is embroidery despite its name. Its stitches have been remarkably stable across centuries: the chain, blanket, running, satin and cross stitches of surviving ancient work are the same ones taught today.

Facts

Craft Class

Fiber and Textile 1

Earliest Evidence (Circa)

Surviving chain-stitch embroidery in silk from Warring States period China, 5th to 3rd centuries BC 1

Origin

The single oldest surviving piece of embroidered cloth is Egyptian; the craft's own antiquity is otherwise judged by scattered, disputed fragments, among them a Migration-period garment from Sweden whose reinforced edges may or may not be decorative needlework rather than plain repair. 1

Cross-Tradition Connections