Darning Stitch

About the Darning Stitch

The Darning Stitch is about making rows of straight Running Stitches near each other. The darning technique mends torn clothes, especially socks, and looks like a woven patch. A fabric is made of weft and warp yarn. A weft is a yarn that runs vertically, while a warp is the one that runs horizontally. They interlock with each other to form the fabric. While mending torn fabric, the Darning Stitch is used to ‘rebuild’ the weft and warp of the worn-out area.


How to do the Darning Stitch

You need to know the Running Stitch to do a darning stitch.

Fig 1: Do a row of Running Stitch, starting from A and ending at B. Then, turn around and begin the second row of Running Stitches from C to end at D. Keep this process of stitching rows of running stitches back and forth. Note that each row is ‘stepped’ to get a brick-like formation.
You can turn a few rows of Darning stitch into a base for beautiful patterns like we did in Parallel Running Stitch and Stepped Running Stitch.

Learn to do Darning Stitch in 2 minutes!


Related Projects

Do you want to know where and how to use this stitch? Check out the projects below and learn more. Make something beautiful!


Learn this stitch along with 305 other stitches from our 600-page eBook. 


12 Responses

  1. R
    RAVI KISHORE says:

    Weft also called filling runs horizontally. Warp yarn in a woven fabric runs vertically and gives it the strength

  2. t
    theodore says:

    hi Sarah! thank you so much for your tutorials i am so happy because i got 10/10 in my assignment it really helps a lot Thank you once again….. bye…

  3. Z
    Zoya says:

    Hi Sarah,
    I want to do a Phulkari embroidery piece, like in the picture. Phulkari embroidery like this supposedly uses long and short darning stitches, but I cannot figure out how it uses darning stitches. Help please 🙂

  4. p
    p.s.bhavani says:

    hai sarah!
    your designs are so nice.You are doing good job.Your site is very effective.

  5. M
    Mallika says:

    hai Sarah! thankyou so much for your tutorials. They are so helpful for me. i had so many doubts about different stitch types and now i am cleared of my doubts.You have taken good effort in leaving nothing to doubt.thanks bye.

    • sarah says:

      Dear Mallika,
      Thanks for your words. It makes all the effort worthwhile to know that you have been enjoying our pages and to the right tone. 🙂 Do share some of your works with us.

  6. s
    suga says:

    Hi sarah… you doing a great job… very useful website…

  7. E
    Edes says:

    Your site is very instructive even to a none sewer.

    Nice.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Upload your Stitches and Embroideries

You can include embroidery images in your comment by selecting them below. Select the file, and post your comment!