The satin stitch is one of my favorite filling stitches for small areas and narrow elements in embroidery. While it is absolutely a gorgeous stitch worked in silk, really, in any thread, it’s beautiful.

Perhaps the most difficult element to stitch well in satin stitch is a circle or larger dot. A wee tiny dot in satin stitch isn’t so difficult – it’s really just a matter of stitching two or three tiny stitches the same size and two slightly smaller stitches on each side of those, to give the look of a dot, without it actually being a perfect circle.

But those are wee tiny dots (an 1/8″ or smaller). But what about larger dots? Once you get the hang of them, they’re actually pretty easy! Here, I’d like to show you how I satin stitch larger dots or circular elements.