Regional traditions»Europe and North America»Embroideries»Celtic Cross Stitch Embroidery
Example of Celtic cross stitch embroidery, worked on Aida.
TRC collection.
Celtic cross-stitch embroidery is a style of counted thread embroidery using cross stitches to create Celtic art patterns. It was popular in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The designs include intricate geometric patterns, interlacing forms, knotwork, spirals, as well as stylised figurative and zoomorphic patterns, all worked in a range of rich colours.
The designs are often based on illustrations found in the Book of Kells, an Irish manuscript dating to the early ninth century AD. Celtic cross stitch embroidery uses the same range of Celtic designs for inspiration as Celtic revival embroidery, but the latter dates mainly from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries and was based on free style designs that were drawn onto a linen ground and then embroidered in a variety of stitches.
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