Cutwork Embroidery

Link to the Cutwork embroidery project

A type of embroidery characterized by openwork patterns created by outlining shapes in tight buttonhole or satin stitches and cutting away the background fabric. 

Cutwork embroidery is sometimes called “embroidered lace” because of its open appearance, but it is not considered to be true lace. Instead, cutwork is fabric made “lacy” by cutting away the ground. Finished holes are sometimes filled in with bars of buttonhole stitch. 

Cutwork is one of the three main techniques used in whitework, along with drawn work, pulled threadwork, and needle lace.

The simplest form of cutwork contains small open areas, such as eyelets.

There are many different variations of cutwork.

Well known examples include :

French Richelieu embroidery - 

Richelieu embroidery includes distinctive buttonhole stitch bars that cross the cut out areas.The connecting bars, instead of being left plain as they are in the Renaissance embroidery, are ornamented with picots.

English broderie anglaise- 
Th is type of whitework includes motifs of flowers, leaves,and stems created entirely in eyelets

Portuguese Madeira work-
Madeira work is a form of Broderie anglaise, which consists chiefly of eyelet holes,  as well as satin stitching and other cutwork techniques.

 
Scandinavian Hardanger embroidery
Hardanger is a Norwegian style of embroidery that uses satin stitch and blocks of drawn threads or cutwork.

Other types of white cutwork include :

Venetian (Italy) embroidery with its thickly padded buttonhole
stitching, 

  
 Spanish cutwork with turned-back hemmed satin stitch edges, and the heavily embroidered Colbert embroidery 

Stay tuned for next post on Cutwork Embroidery tutorial.