Consider the humble brick. We build houses from it, we put it in pathways and patios, we celebrate its honesty in refurbished buildings. Unheralded and, mostly unloved, we don’t pause to think what a wonderful generator of geometric goodness it is.
A brick is a powerful source of patterns. That’s largely because the brick is twice as long as it is high. That 2:1 ratio can also be found in many needlepoint stitches (Cashmere and Oblong Smyrna to name two) and techniques such as Blackwork. You can then easily use brick patterns you see to create wonderful stitched patterns for your needlepoint.
Today we’ll look at a few charted either in Cashmere Stitches or as Blackwork Patterns. (All Blackwork Stitches that are straight always go over two canvas threads for stability.)
Running Bond
Did you know this is the proper name for the offset pattern we think of as the “typical” brick wall? “Bond” is the name given by the British for basic brick patterns.
In Cashmere Stitch, Running Bond looks like this:
In Blackwork, it looks like this:
Flemish Bond
This is a pattern that inserts short side bricks between long side bricks in every other row. In order to keep the wall stable the long-row only rows are made with longer bricks with a 3:1 ratio.
In Blackwork, this pattern looks like this:
English Bond
Alternates rows of bricks set on their long side with bricks on their short side. In real bricks this would make a wall that’s uneven on one side. This is overcome by putting the bricks in the long-side rows in pairs back-to-back.
In needlepoint we do not have this worry. The chart below shows the pattern in Blackwork. In needlepoint stitches make it in Cashmere and Mosaic Stitches.
You don’t need to be limited to just one row of the long side bricks, you can put several in the Flemish Bond pattern between each of short side rows, as in the picture at the top of the article.
Lattice Brickwork
It’s also easy to combine “bricks” of various sizes into more complex patterns. Here is the same pattern rendered as a Blackwork chart, below top, and as a stitch patterns, below bottom.
Historic Building Patterns
Many older buildings have brick in interesting patterns. Here is a stitch pattern taken from 17th Century Buildings in the Eastern part of the US. Annapolis Brick, below, uses bricks in two sizes. It’s taken from a wall at St. John’s College in Annapolis. Walk around old cities, you’re sure to find more
About Janet M Perry
Janet Perry is the Internet's leading authority on needlepoint. She designs, teaches and writes, getting raves from her fans for her innovative techniques, extensive knowledge and generous teaching style. A leading writer of stitch guides, she blogs here and lives on an island in the northeast corner of the SF Bay with her family
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