How To Do A Bullion Knot In Embroidery -

<< Back To All Embroidery Stitches

The bullion knot is a raised embroidery stitch that is great when you want to add a more 3-dimensional feel to your embroidery. It is great to use for things like roses and flower buds. It is worked similarly to the cast-on embroidery stitch.

Come up through the fabric at A and grab the fabric with your needle at B and C.
Twist the thread around the top of the needle.
Continue twisting the thread around the needle until the length is approximately the same length as the fabric your needle is grabbing.
Pull the needle through and scrunch up the stitches.
Go back down through the fabric at the base of the knot to secure.

General Tips

Make sure not to make the twists super tight on the needle or it will be hard to pull the needle and thread through the fabric.
Use an embroidery needle that doesn’t have a super large eye. The eye can get caught in the twists.

Variations

You can make different shapes that resemble small flowers, flower buds, and roses with this stitch.

Bullion Knot Rose

Make 2 bullion knots side by side. Then begin making stitches around the center stitches, fanning them out similar to the diagram above. The start of the next bullion knot should start about 2/3 of the way down the previous bullion knot.

Bullion Loop Flower

A variation of the bullion knot is a bullion loop. Grab less fabric with your needle and add more twists around the needle. For the flower above, I added 18 twists to the needle.

Make 4 or 5 of these bullion loops around a circle and add a French knot.

Amanda

Amanda is a hand embroidery teacher and artist. With over 15 years of experience in the craft industry and embroidery, she owns and runs Crewel Ghoul, sharing accessible tutorials and patterns to help inspire fellow crafters to get creative. In addition to running this website, she teaches on Skillshare and Youtube.