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The Railway Stitch

The Railway Stitch, also known as Loop Stitch, and Point Chemin de Fer, was given these names because of the rapidity with which embroidery patterns can be executed when worked with it.

Illustration No.1

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The designs for the embroidery should always be of small flowers and leaves, such as forget-me-nots, and arranged in detached sprays dotted about the surface of the material (see Illustration No. 1), and the stitch executed in coarse white embroidery cotton, Pyrenean wool, or silk thread.

Railway Stitch

Illustration No. 2

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To work: Trace a small spray of forget-me-not flowers and leaves, but do not outline the design with a run thread.

Commence to work from the center of the flower, and make each petal with one stitch. Bring the needle up from the back hold the thread down with the left thumb, put the needle in close to where it came out, and bring it out at the point of the petal, and over the thread held down by the left thumb. Draw up, making a kind of long loop, held down in the center with the drawn up thread. Put the needle down again just outside the loop, making a very small stitch at the end of the petal, run the needle out again in the middle of the flower, and commence to work another petal. (See illustration No. 2.)

Finish of the center of the flower with FRENCH KNOTS or BUTTONHOLE it round, or pierce it with a stiletto, and OVERCAST round the hole so made. Each leaf will only require one Railway stitch to fill it. Overcast the stems of the sprays.

Railway Stitch No. 2

This stitch has also been given to the stitch that many know as the Leviathan or Smyrna Stitch. For directions for make this stitch, please see Leviathan Stitch.
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