{"id":7471,"date":"2024-12-15T18:10:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-15T18:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/?p=7471"},"modified":"2026-05-30T18:14:27","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T18:14:27","slug":"basque-fact-of-the-week-the-basque-knot-and-the-basque-stitch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2024\/12\/15\/basque-fact-of-the-week-the-basque-knot-and-the-basque-stitch\/","title":{"rendered":"Basque Fact of the Week: The Basque Knot and the Basque Stitch"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-cyan-bluish-gray-background-color has-background wp-block-paragraph\">Lisa Van De Graaff (my wife), in her studies of the textile arts, ran across an embroidery stitch called the\u00a0<em>Basque stitch<\/em>. She asked me about it, suggesting I do a\u00a0<em>Basque Fact of the Week<\/em>\u00a0about it. It turns out, there is little information about it in English beyond the fact that it is called a Basque stitch. There is another embroidery term also inspired by the Basques, the\u00a0<em>Basque knot<\/em>. Beyond finding their origins in the Basque Country, there isn\u2019t too much more out there.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-medium\"><a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/basque_stitch_5.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"122\" src=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/basque_stitch_5-300x122.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7473\" srcset=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/basque_stitch_5-300x122.jpg 300w, https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/basque_stitch_5.jpg 750w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">An example of the Basque stitch. Photo from\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.embroidery.rocksea.org\/stitch\/chain-stitch\/basque-stitch\/\">Sarah\u2019s Hand Embroidery Tutorials<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The origins of these embroidery techniques have been lost to time. There is some indication that the Basque stitch dates to the eighth century, when the Moors occupied large swaths of the Iberian peninsula and had close ties to some parts of the Basque Country. What is certain is that these stitches have been a prominent part of Basque design for many centuries.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.embroidery.rocksea.org\/stitch\/chain-stitch\/basque-stitch\/\">Basque stitch<\/a>\u00a0is also known as a twisted daisy border stitch. In Spanish, it is called\u00a0<em>Punto de vasca<\/em>. If there is a specific term for this stitch in Euskara, I haven\u2019t been able to find it.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.embroidery.rocksea.org\/stitch\/palestrina\/basque-knot\/\">Basque knot<\/a>\u00a0is thought to be much newer in terms of its history. But, really, that\u2019s all that seems to be known about this stitch. The Basque knot is also called a pearl stitch.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Sometimes the two terms are used interchangeably, further confusing things.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I\u2019m not going to try to describe either the Basque stitch or the Basque knot here, as I wouldn\u2019t be able to do either justice. If you are interested, you can check out\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/pieceworkmagazine.com\/stitch-in-time-basque-stitch\/\">this article<\/a>\u00a0on Piecework Magazine that goes into some of this history (what little is known) and provides step-by-step instructions as well as other links on how to make both of them.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>That\u2019s about all I could find about the origins and history of these stitches. If anyone knows more, please share!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-cyan-bluish-gray-background-color has-background wp-block-paragraph\">A full list of all of Buber&#8217;s Basque Facts of the Week can be found in the <a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/basque-fact-of-the-week-archive\/\">Archive<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Primary sources: See links in the main article.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thanks to Lisa Van De Graaff for suggesting this topic for a Basque Fact of the Week!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lisa Van De Graaff (my wife), in her studies of the textile arts, ran across an embroidery stitch called the\u00a0Basque stitch. She asked me about it, suggesting I do a\u00a0Basque Fact of the Week\u00a0about it. It turns out, there is little information about it in English beyond the fact that it is called a Basque [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20,836],"tags":[4076,4077,4078],"class_list":["post-7471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","category-basque-fact-of-the-week","tag-basque-knot","tag-basque-stitch","tag-embroidery"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/basque_stitch_5.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2sYNu-1Wv","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7471"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7474,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7471\/revisions\/7474"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}