Running Stitch

The First Stitch Every Sewer Learns

Running stitch is sewing reduced to its essence: down through the fabric, up through the fabric, repeated along a line. Several stitches are usually loaded onto the needle at once in a rocking motion before the thread is pulled through, which gives hand running stitch its rhythm and speed. Because the thread dives and surfaces alternately, the line is dashed, thread showing on top, gap, thread again, with typically more thread visible on the top of the sewing than on the underside. Controlling the length and evenness of those dashes, small and regular for a seam, long and loose for basting, is the first manual skill of the hand sewer, and every other hand stitch is a variation on this in-and-out foundation.

Its simplicity does not make it weak in its proper places. A running stitch seam, worked small in strong thread, holds light and medium fabrics adequately and was the standard seam stitch for centuries of hand-sewn clothing; tailoring still uses running stitch where a seam must be controlled precisely, eased or shaped by hand. In hand patchwork, running stitch assembles the pieces along marked lines with an accuracy machines struggle to match on small or curved pieces. In quilting, rows of running stitch through all three layers are quite literally the quilting itself, the stitch that holds top, batting and backing together.

A Family of Working Variants

Change the length, spacing or direction of running stitch and it takes new names and new jobs. Basting stitches are long running stitches, used to keep two pieces of fabric or trim aligned during final sewing or to sew pieces together temporarily, and they are meant to be removed. Darning stitches are closely spaced parallel rows of running stitches, used to fill or reinforce worn areas of a textile, the foundation of darning repairs, or worked as decoration. Double-running or Holbein stitch adds a second row of running stitches worked in the reverse direction between the stitches of the first pass, filling every gap to make a solid line of stitching that looks identical on both sides, the stitch of reversible blackwork. Double darning stitches are closely spaced rows of Holbein stitch.

Running stitch is also a world embroidery stitch in its own right. It is a component of many traditional embroidery styles, including kantha of India and Bangladesh, in which layered cloth is covered with running stitch patterning, and Japanese sashiko quilting, where white running stitches form geometric patterns on indigo fabric. Loosely spaced rows of short running stitches support padded satin stitch in surface embroidery. In each tradition the same plain action, needle in, needle out, produces a different textile character through rhythm, spacing and pattern, which is why running stitch is fairly described as the stitch on which all other forms of sewing are based.