One of the questions that I’m asked frequently concerns embroidering on personal or household linens, where the back of the embroidery is not covered in any way when the piece is finished.

When embroidering kitchen towels or a table cloth or placemats, a guest towel, pillowcases, or handkerchief, the back of the embroidery is not normally covered in the finish work. It’s visible, and it is mostly likely going to be seen.

When the back of the embroidery is meant to be visible – even though it isn’t the primary side anyone looks at – we want the back to look as neat as possible. No, it doesn’t have to look just like the front. But it should at least be neat.

One place where you can really control the neatness on the back of embroidery is the beginning and end of any thread. If you pay attention to your starts and stops and make them as neat as possible, this goes a long way to a nice clean look on the back of the work.

Since two strands of floss are a frequently used weight of stranded cotton, I thought I’d show you how I like to start a thread when working on such pieces and stitching with two strands. It’s a super secure way to start threads and it will keep the starts of your threads extremely neat on the back of your work. I’ll also show you my favorite way to securely and neatly end a thread – but the focus here is really the start of the thread.