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MOSAIC STITCH

The mosaic stitch is one of the most basic needlepoint stitches. One mosaic stitch covers two canvas threads in height and two in width, and actually consists of three stitches, over one canvas intersection, two canvas intersections, and one canvas intersection. It makes little squares. This is what a single completed mosaic stitch looks like:

Here is a row of mosaic stitches, in which every other mosaic stitch unit is shown in aqua, to emphasize how the squares develop visually:

The correct sequence to use when making this stitch depends on whether you will be working in horizontal rows from left to right, or right to left; or in vertical rows from top to bottom, or bottom to top (the reason is if you choose the wrong sequence, you will end up going down in the same hole you would come up in to make the next stitch, thus undoing your previous stitch).

To stitch a horizontal row of mosaic stitches from left to right, use the following sequence:

To stitch a horizontal row of mosaic stitches from right to left, use the following sequence:

The next diagram shows how to stitch a vertical row of mosaic stitches, from top to bottom:

The next diagram shows how to stitch a vertical row of mosaic stitches, from bottom to top:

Here is what a larger area stitched in mosaic stitch looks like:

Here is an example of stitched mosaic stitch:

There are several variations on the basic mosaic stitch. Here are a few of the more useful ones.

1) You can alternate blocks of mosaic stitch with blocks of regular tent stitch. For purposes of illustration, the tent stitch blocks are shown in aqua below, but this does not mean that you must use two different threads (although you may if you wish):

2) You may also alternate the slant of the mosaic stitch in every other square, which creates a very different texture than you get with plain mosaic stitch. This version is known as Alternating Mosaic Stitch. One stitch sequence for this stitch (when done in horizontal rows from left to right is as follows:

Alternating mosaic shown in a larger area looks like this:

Here is an actual sample of alternating mosaic:

3) Another excellent variation on the mosaic stitch is the diagonal mosaic. Rather than making small squares, this stitch creates diagonal rows of continuous mosaic stitches, which are done over one thread, two threads, one thread, two threads, and so on. Here is what a single row of diagonal mosaic stitch looks like:

Here is diagonal mosaic done over a larger area. Compensating stitches around the outer edges are shown in aqua, for illustration purposes only:

Here is a stitched example of diagonal mosaic stitch:

Diagrams and text copyright 2005, Denise Davis, Threadneedle Street