Isolated French Knots: Start, Finish, and Trailing Between the Stitches

French Knot is an isolated stitch that you can work in groups or as single dots. It’s easy to hide the starting stitch and secure the thread end when the filling is dense, and there are plenty of tiny stitches on the back to use as anchors. But some hand embroidery designs will require one single isolated French Knot. Others will place French Knots far apart, creating very long jumping threads on the back.

In some cases, long trailing between the isolated stitches will not create problems, and you can leave these long jumping threads on the back. If your fabric is dense, dark, and sturdy, and the trailing doesn’t show from the front, it’s fine to leave them.

In other cases, the trailing will show on the front, creating unwanted lines connecting the dots. Also, long jumping threads on the back can get in the way if you leave them on garments or home textiles where the back side is visible or comes into contact when used. In these cases, the risk of the stitches getting pulled and distorted is very high.

How to start and finish these lonely stitches?

The first idea that comes to mind is to start with a knot. But a knot on the back isn’t ideal for French Knots. When you wrap the thread around the needle and push it back into the fabric near the starting point, the knot on the back gets in the way. If your needle catches that starting knot, you risk pulling it and distorting a stitch you just made. It also doesn’t solve the problem of securing a finished thread.

I mostly use two options for starting and finishing isolated French Knots. Here are the tutorials:

With this method, you start embroidering your isolated French Knot Stitch with a waste knot, and when the stitch is done, you tie both ends in one knot on the back of the fabric. This method works with any thread and any number of strands.

This method works well with embroidery floss that comes in pairs of threads (2, 4, or 6 strands) or any doubled thread. Start stitching with a folded thread loop, and finish by anchoring the thread to the small stitch on the back side.

How to start and finish isolated French Knots: Video Tutorial

Over to you

Both methods demonstrated in this tutorial for starting and finishing isolated French knots are great, valid options for any hand embroidery design. Both methods keep the knot secure, with no threads trailing on the back.

My choice of method mostly depends on the thread I use. I’ll use the folded-thread method for hand embroidery floss if I choose to use two, four, or all six strands at a time, and the waste-away knot method for all other threads and odd numbers of strands.

Now that you’ve learned two methods for starting and finishing isolated French Knots, which one will you try first?

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