The running stitch or straight stitch is the basic stitch in hand-sewing

Sewing

Sewing is the craft of fastening or attaching objects using stitches made with a needle and thread. Sewing is one of the oldest of the textile arts, arising in the Paleolithic era...

 and embroidery

Embroidery

Embroidery is the art or handicraft of decorating fabric or other materials with needle and thread or yarn. Embroidery may also incorporate other materials such as metal strips, pearls, beads, quills, and sequins....

, on which all other forms of sewing are based. The stitch is worked by passing the needle

Sewing needle

A sewing needle is a long slender tool with a pointed tip. The first needles were made of bone or wood; modern ones are manufactured from high carbon steel wire, nickel- or 18K gold plated for corrosion resistance. The highest quality embroidery needles are plated with two-thirds platinum and...

 in and out of the fabric

Textile

A textile or cloth is a flexible woven material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibres often referred to as thread or yarn. Yarn is produced by spinning raw fibres of wool, flax, cotton, or other material to produce long strands...

. Running stitches may be of varying length, but typically more thread

Yarn

Yarn is a long continuous length of interlocked fibres, suitable for use in the production of textiles, sewing, crocheting, knitting, weaving, embroidery and ropemaking. Thread is a type of yarn intended for sewing by hand or machine. Modern manufactured sewing threads may be finished with wax or...

 is visible on the top of the sewing than on the underside.

Uses

Very Slow Walkin stitches are used in hand-sewing and tailor

Tailor

A tailor is a person who makes, repairs, or alters clothing professionally, especially suits and men's clothing.Although the term dates to the thirteenth century, tailor took on its modern sense in the late eighteenth century, and now refers to makers of men's and women's suits, coats, trousers,...

ing to sew basic seams, in hand patchwork

Patchwork

Patchwork or "pieced work" is a form of needlework that involves sewing together pieces of fabric into a larger design. The larger design is usually based on repeat patterns built up with different colored shapes. These shapes are carefully measured and cut, straight-sided, basic geometric shapes...

 to assemble pieces, and in quilting

Quilting

Quilting is a sewing method done to join two or more layers of material together to make a thicker padded material. A quilter is the name given to someone who works at quilting. Quilting can be done by hand, by sewing machine, or by a specialist longarm quilting system.The process of quilting uses...

 to hold the fabric layers and batting or wadding

Batting (material)

Batting is a layer of insulation used in quilting between a top layer of patchwork and a bottom layer of backing material. Batting is usually made of cotton, polyester, and/or wool....

 in place. Loosely spaced rows of short running stitches are used to support padded satin stitch

Satin stitch

In sewing and embroidery, a satin stitch or damask stitch is a series of flat stitches that are used to completely cover a section of the background fabric...

.

Running stitches are a component of many traditional embroidery styles, including kantha

Kantha

Kantha is a type of embroidery popular in Bangladesh and in West Bengal, India. The use of kantha is popular in saris traditionally worn by women in Bengal, but any garment or cloth with kantha embroidery may be called a kantha garment.Kantha stitching is also used to make simple quilts...

 of India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 and Bangladesh

Bangladesh

Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...

, and Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese sashiko quilting

Sashiko quilting

is a form of decorative reinforcement stitching from Japan. Traditionally used to reinforce points of wear, or to repair worn places or tears with patches, this running stitch technique is often used for purely decorative purposes in quilting and embroidery...

.

Related stitches

• Basting stitches are long running stitches used to keep two pieces of fabric or trim
  Trim (sewing)
  Trim or trimming in clothing and home decorating is applied ornament, such as gimp, passementerie, ribbon, ruffles, or, as a verb, to apply such ornament....
  
   aligned during final sewing, or to otherwise temporarily sew two pieces together.

• Darning stitches are closely spaced parallel
  Parallel (geometry)
  Parallelism is a term in geometry and in everyday life that refers to a property in Euclidean space of two or more lines or planes, or a combination of these. The assumed existence and properties of parallel lines are the basis of Euclid's parallel postulate. Two lines in a plane that do not...
  
   rows of running stitches used to fill or reinforce worn areas of a textile, or as decoration (see Darning
  Darning
  Darning is a sewing technique for repairing holes or worn areas in fabric or knitting using needle and thread alone. It is often done by hand, but it is also possible to darn with a sewing machine...
  
  ).

• Double-running or Holbein stitches
  Holbein stitch
  Holbein stitch is a simple, reversible line embroidery stitch most commonly used in Blackwork embroidery and Assisi embroidery. The stitch is named after Hans Holbein the Younger , a 16th-century portrait painter best known for his paintings of Henry VIII and his children, almost all of whom are...
  
  have a second row of running stitches worked in a reverse direction in between the stitches of the first pass, to make a solid line of stitching.

• Double darning stitches are closely spaced (but not overlapping) rows of Holbein stitches.

External links

• Running Stitch