Swedish Embroidery on Knitting

 

Swedish Embroidery

• Also called huck embroidery.
• Made on an even weave fabric, such as monk’s cloth, cross stitch fabric, and huck toweling.  Can also be done on crocheted fabric.
• Surface weaving technique – threads/yarn travel under floats and do not go through the fabric.
• Huck toweling can only be woven through horizontal floats; other fabrics can be woven both horizontally and vertically.
• Just about any thread or yarn can be used for weaving, as long as it can be pulled through the floats without raveling.

 

Machine Knit Fabric

• Knit fabric can only be woven vertically.
• The pattern must be as square as possible.  4 stitches and 6 rows work.
• Machine style weaving (laying the threads on the tucked/slipped needle) is slow and does not give the same result as weaving the pattern by hand.
• Tuck stitch: hard to weave the thread and not recommended.
• Garter stitch works, but is slow to knit and hard to see when weaving.  The purl side is woven vertically while the knit side is woven horizontally.  The weaving yarn will show on the opposite side.
• Slip stitch: works the best.  Purl side is woven vertically.  Knit side cannot be woven.  Weaving does not show through to the knit side.

 

Two tuck/slip patterns.  The one on the left works best for tuck, the one on the right works best for slip.

 

               

 

 

 

 

Garter stitch pattern.  Notice that it is the reverse of the first tuck stitch pattern. 

 

 

 

Weaving hints

• Weaving will prevent the fabric from stretching, so steam or kill the knitting first.
• Use a blunt needle.
• Start from the middle of the fabric and weave to the edges.
• Do not pull the weaving thread tightly. 
• End the thread by going through to the back of the fabric, then up to the front.  Secure the tail by weaving back along the pattern for several stitches.

 

Example shows weaving on slip stitch.