How to Stitch a Pekinese Stitch

The Pekinese stitch, or Chinese stitch, creates a sort of braided line, and is commonly used to make lines and decorative borders. It is one of the easiest stitches to execute, and you can do many variations depending on the desired finished look. Follow the steps below for doing a Pekinese stitch.

Instructions

1. Begin by stitching a regular, straight back stitch with regular thread. The stitches should be long and loose, depending on how tight you want the braid. This also depends on how thick the decorative thread being used for loops is. Leave the stitch pretty loose. Make the stitches uniform in length or else the finished braid can be distorted.

2. Use a blunt needle to lace the thread through the straight back stitch. The thread used here should be a different thread. It should be decorative. It can even be ribbon. Use threads close to the same color, or contrasting

3. Create loops by moving forward 2 loops and lacing the thread through. Then move back one and lace the thread through again. Do not pull the loop tight.

4. Move onto the next loop. The thread will overlap, but must be pushed underneath the thread at the beginning of the loop.

5. Be careful not to pass any of the thread through the fabric. This stitch looks most striking if the thread used is thick and flat, and manipulated to lay flat in each loop.