Jun
Knitting tip & techniques
Tutorial: Old Icelandic cross stitch
The Old Icelandic cross stitch is also known as long-arm cross-stitch, Slav stitch, long legged cross stitch, plaited Slav stitch, Greek stitch, Portuguese stitch, or twist stitch. You embroider one cross then go again in the cross before embroidering the next. It has much more coverage than a regular cross stitch.
It was widely used in Iceland on tapestries and blankets and you can also see it embroidered on traditional knitted mittens.
How to
Stitches are worked from left to right, and then in the next row from right to left. To do so, embroider back, reversing the stitches. This way, you don’t have to break the embroidery yarn as often as you would if you always stitched in the same direction. However this makes a different visual effect.
From right to left
From left to right
Single stitch
From top to bottom
Here are some examples of patterns where I used this technique:
You might also enjoyed this beautiful book about enbroidered mittens
Useful links
