Cretan stitch
Portugal is located in the south western part of the European continent and since its inception in the European Union in the late 1980s the country has encountered immense prosperity. The country also boasts of a strong and enriched history supplemented by cultural heritages which have percolated down generations. Embroidery is one such feature which has been practiced in Portugal for ages and is today famous worldwide for its perfection and beauty.
The Cretan stitch which is today one of the prominent among the Portuguese embroidery techniques originated in the island of Crete and it was a popular stitching form which was practiced by the female inhabitants of Crete who used this form of embroidery to embellish their garments. This is from where the stitch also derives its name. However the Cretan stitch is also known by various other names like long-arm feather stitch and Persian stitch. The Cretan stitch can be used in mainly two ways; firstly they can be stitched closer or can be done by placing the stitches far apart. If one looks back to the traditional forms, it will be interesting to find that initially the Cretan stitch was used as in the Crewel embroidery patterns or along two sets of lines which ran parallel to each other. Cretan stitch can be of several types like the open Cretan stitch, knotted Cretan stitch. The knotted Cretan stitch is a kind of open Cretan stitch only and in fact it is also somewhat identical to the Palestrina stitch. The open Cretan stitch is made up of threads which are sewn in a crisscross manner following a curve as the needle is introduced in the fabric vertically. In case of the knotted Cretan stitch a similar pattern is followed but after the completion of the curvature, a knot is made.