chinese embroidery

Quillwork is a form of textile embellishment traditionally practiced by Native Americans that employs the quills of porcupines as an aesthetic element. Quills from bird feathers were also occasionally used in quillwork.

Smocking is an embroidery technique used to gather fabric so that it can stretch. Before elastic, smocking was commonly used in cuffs, bodices, and necklines in garments where buttons were undesirable. smocking developed in England and has been practised since the Middle Ages and is unusual among embroidery methods in that it was often worn by laborers. Other major embroidery styles are purely decorative and represented status symbols. smocking was practical for garments to be both form fitting and flexible, hence its name derives from smock a farmer work shirt.smocking was used most extensively in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Stumpwork is a style of embroidery where the stitched figures are raised from the surface of the work to form a 3 dimensional effect.stitches can be worked around pieces of wire to create individual forms such as leaves, insect wings or flower petals. This form is then applied to the main body of work by piercing the background fabric with the wires and securing tightly. Other shapes can be created using padding under the stitches, usually in the form of felt layers sewn one upon the other in increasingly smaller sizes. The felt is then covered with a layer of embroidery stitches.A modern day subcategory of this art form used primarily in production embroidery on automated embroidery machines is referred to as puff embroidery. The process involves putting down, typically, a layer of foam rubber larger than the intended shape on top of the target material to be decorated. The shape is then embroidered on top of the foam rubber in such a way that the needle penetrations cut the foam rubber around the periphery of the shape. When the embroidery is finished the excess foam rubber is weeded (pulled away or cleaned off) from the design area, leaving the underlying foam rubber shape trapped under the embroidery stitches resulting in a stumpwork effect.

Surface embroidery is any form of embroidery in which the pattern is worked by the use of decorative stitches and laid threads on top of the foundation fabric or canvas rather than through the fabric it is contrasted with canvas work. Much free embroidery is also surface embroidery, as are a few forms of counted thread embroidery such as cross stitch.

Suzani is a type of embroidered and decorative tribal textile made in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries. suzani is from the Persian suzan which means needle. The art of making such textiles in Iran is called suzankari (needlework).suzanis usually have a cotton (sometimes silk) fabric base, which is embroidered in silk or cotton thread. Chain, satin, and buttonhole stitches are the primary stitches used. There is also extensive use of couching, in which decorative thread laid on the fabric as a raised line is stitched in place with a second thread. suzanis are often made in two or more pieces, that are then stitched together Popular design motifs include sun and moon disks, flowers (especially tulips, carnations, and irises), leaves and vines, fruits (especially pomegranates), and occasional fish and birds.

Trianglepoint is a form of embroidery in which a series of equilateral triangles are stitched in different colors to create geometric designs, three dimensional designs or pictures. The term was coined by needlepoint designer sherlee Lantz (or more accurately suggested by a friend) for her 1976 book Trianglepoint (New York Viking).

Whitework embroidery refers to any embroidery technique in which the stitching is the same color as the foundation fabric (traditionally white linen).styles of whitework embroidery include most drawn thread work, broderie anglaise, Hardanger embroidery, Mountmellick embroidery and reticella.Whitework embroidery is one of the techniques employed in heirloom sewing for blouses, christening gowns, baby bonnets, and other small articles.