How to Make a Bullion Knot

August 2nd, 2008 in sewing, embroidery, quilting

Jennifer Stern, contributor

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The Bullion Knot is another great embroidery stitch to have in your skill repertory.

Here is a picture of your needle start position .

The yarn wrapped around the needle about five or six times will look like this.

The Bullion Knot is another great embroidery stitch to have in your skill repertory.

Photo: Len Hasemann

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The Bullion Knot is an elongated knot. The length is determined by how far you insert the needle away from where it came up to the right side. You can begin by working your technique on shorter knots. The longer the knot the more times you have to coil the yarn around the needle, making it harder to work with.

Step-By-Step Bullion Knot

Pull needle to the right side of the fabric, creating the start point. Insert needle approximately ¼” inch away creating the end point. Bring needle back up through the start point, leave the needle in this position to form the knot.

Here is a picture of your needle start position.

Wrap yarn around needle (The number of times you have to wrap the yarn around the needle depends on how long and thick you want your knot to be—for a ¼” knot start with 5 or 6 times.) Wrap the yarn around the needle firmly, but not too tightly. The longest knot that I attempted was about 3/8” long, and I wrapped the yarn around the needle 10 or 11 times.

The yarn wrapped around the needle about five or six times will look like this.

Gently hold the coil of wrapped yarn with your fingertip as you pull the needle through.

The needle is pulled through coil of wrapped yarn.

Pull the yarn through the coil, gently tightening as you go.

Insert needle back through the end point.

Reinsert needle here.

The coil will flip toward the end point as you gently tighten the yarn. The coil should lay nice and flat as the yarn is pulled back through end point to create the knot.