How to do the Pekinese Stitch - Sarah's Hand Embroidery Tutorials

Pekinese Stitch is also known as

Chinese Stitch _[EN], Punto de pequinés _[ES], Point de Pékin / Point arrière entrelacé bouclé _[FR], Pekingstich _[DE], punto Pechinese _[IT], Ponto Pequinês _[PT].

How to do the Pekinese Stitch

The Pekinese Stitch is commonly found in Chinese embroideries and used to make linear elements rather than fillings. One or two rows are placed to make outlines in the pattern. Using contrasting threads will throw up the beauty of the design well. It could be confused with the Chinese knot Stitch which is used to make fillings, though both the stitches follow absolutely different techniques. That being said, it can resemble the ‘ring’ variation of the Chinese Knot placed close to each other.


Back stitch: Lay the foundation by doing a Back Stitch.

Fig 1: Take another thread and needle and bring it out through A. Pass the needle under the stitch B-C, from above, as shown. Do not pluck the fabric underneath.	Fig 2: Now, pass the needle under the stitch A-B, from below, as shown.

Fig 3: You will see that a loop is formed at the stitch point B. Our aim would be to make such similar loops at each stitch point. As the next action, take the needle under C-D from above.	Fig 4: Now pass the needle under B-C from below. Continue this action of looping each stitch point by taking the needle under the stitches.

Fig 5: Continue this process of taking the needle under each Back Stitch foundation to give it a twining effect.