Chain Stitch and Lazy Daisy are classic embroidery stitches that you can use to add special details to your crocheted, sewn or refashioned garments.

Here I used a fingering weight wool yarn to add lots of daisies to this 80s inspired crocheted pullover, my Lyerly Embroidered Pullover pattern. I love the detail of the little ones on the sleeve cuffs.

Chain stitch alone can be used to create, well, a chain, or to create sweet little leaves on flower stems and vines. Here, I made chain stitches in the same yarn used to crochet the main body of the skirt to make leaves on a vine that weaves along the button placket of my Evelyn Button Down Skirt pattern.

And here, I used embroidery thread to creates multicolored lazy daisies on the sleeves of a plain t-shirt. You can see a few more pics and read more details about this project in this blog post.

And now that we’ve seen a bit of inspiration, let’s get to it!

How To Embroider Chain Stitch:

1.) Bring needle up at point A then back down just beside, leaving a loop. Bring needle back up about a centimeter away at point B, catching loop. Pull loop taught.

2.) Bring needle back down just outside of loop, at point C.

3.) Pull taught to secure loop. This creates an embroidered chain stitch.

How To Embroider A Lazy Daisy:

Multiple chain stitches worked from a shared central point can be used to create a lazy daisy flower. Five is the typical amount of chain stitches used.

Optionally, you can fill in each petal by working two or three simple straight stitches inside the petal as shown above, just like the daisies on the t-shirt sleeve at the beginning of the post.

A filled in lazy daisy should look something like this.

A French knot can be added to the flower center to finish it. You can find the tutorial for how to embroider French knots here.

And there you have it! If you’ve never attempted embroidering a chain stitch or lazy daisy before, I hope this helps. And if you have any questions please leave a comment or email me – minwaters23@yahoo.com!

For more tips for embroidering on crochet and stitch tutorials, see my Crochet Embroidered Sampler Series, starting here.