Typical Stitches Used

Thread Painting uses a limited number of stitches including Back Stitch, Bullion Knot, Eyelet Stitch, French Knot, Long-and-Short Stitch, Running Stitch, Satin Stitch, Split Stitch, and Stem Stitch. 

For Silk Shading, the artist uses linear, filling, supplemental, and scale techniques and knots. Similar to long and short stitch, Chinese blending techniques include the single blending stitch, double blending stitch, random blending stitch, radiating blending stitch, converging blending stitch, and combined blending stitch.

The work to the left is an original thread painting design adapted from a watercolor painting by W. Tate.

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ART EMBROIDERY

Long and Short Stitch

According to the Royal School of Needlework (2025), long-and-short stitch is also used in crewelwork, stumpwork, whitework, surface embroidery, and Elizabethan embroidery. This stitch is also known as long-and-short satin stitch, shading stitch, plumage stitch, feather stitch, or cushion stitch.

Consists of a series of long, medium, and shorter straight stitches that are densely combined to fill and smoothly cover an area of fabric. Uses different colored threads that enables blending, shading, and realism.

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Random Stitch Embroidery: Chinese

Random Stitch Embroidery

Also translated as chaotic stitch embroidery or random stitch-general embroidery.

Strategically placed layers of silk thread using purposefully sized cross stitches and discerning selection of color and thread size to create a highly realistic effect with great depth of color and dimensional perspective. Developed in 1928 by Yang Shouyu, the stitch came into widespread use in the 1950's. This stitch was used specifically to emulate Western oil paintings and can be used to develop works based on photographic drafts. 

During the 1950’s, the Suzhou government set up an embroidery unit to research and teach embroidery: Suzhou Embroidery Research Institutes (SERI). Over the years, the ´technique was further developed and advanced. Larger pieces were designed for cultural exchange and gifts, including life paintings, cats, dogs, lions, still life paintings, and portraits from paintings.

In the Mid-1970’s: American photographer, Robert Ketchum, collaborated with the SERi to reproduce photographs into stitched art as published in the Threads of Light (1999).

Technique:
In general, there are three layers to be stitched:

first, A broad layer of color using stitches in pairs or triplets

second, Refining details are added: larger surfaces first than smaller areas and foreground objects; darker areas are developed first than lighter areas.

third, Fine artistic processing using splitting silk thread technique by splitting a standard silk thread into several finer strands; for highlights and accents.

Resources

Books
​Burr, Trish. (2006). Long and Short Stitch Embroidery: A Collection of Flowers, Sally Milnrt Publishing Pty.
Lee, Margaret. (2013). The Art of Chinese Embroidery: Foundation Level, Inspirations.
Lee, Margaret. (2020). The Art of Chinese Embroidery-2, Intermediate Level, Inspirations.

​Online
​Lee, Margaret tutorial

​Random Stitch Embroidery_Baiduwiki