Simple to work, beautiful results.  As in laid work, these stitches can be used for large design areas not suitable for satin stitch.   The results create rich texture and interesting patterns, depending upon how you employ them. You can also use them effectively in medium-sized and small motifs as well as bands and borders. 

     General Directions:    You will need to use a hoop or frame to maintain constant tension.   The stitches show off to full advantage when used with medium to heavy-weight threads. Pearl cotton 5 or 8 or Kanagawa silk are excellent choices. Three strands of floss also show them off to advantage. For fine work, one strand of floss or a fine twisted silk works as well.  Any ground is suitable, although regionally, certain grounds were employed.

     Use longer lengths of thread than you would ordinarily employ, otherwise you will constantly have to begin and end threads.

An extremely versatile stitch. Depending upon the angle, length, and region where it used, it is called by several names: janina stitch, figure stitch, oriental couching, antique couching, Indian stitch (Mountmellick work).  Dillmont states it came from Persia.

This is the Indian stitch used in Mountmellick. It is a variation of Romanian stitch. Note the long couching thread at the wide center area. The final appearance is like velvet, slightly undulating, but the divisions are barely noticeable.

The directions for this illustration came from the Lacis reprint of the many Weldon's (UK) publication on the subject of Mountmellick. Today, teachers in Ireland are recommending that the true nature of this stitch in their work is less precise for the couching in order to create a more natural flow, less defined. The couching stitches should not all be the same length, nor start and end at the same spot.  See the following notes on Romanian couching.

Romanian Couching

From Romanian stitch we advance to the method known as Romanian couching.  Here long threads are laid across large motifs and long or medium length couching threads are made, depending upon the final effect you want. When worked to create a satiny "fill" rather than a patterned fill, long couching is worked, picking up just a few threads of the ground in between (from the Chinese, known as figure stitch). In the example at left (altered slightly from the original in the Ballentine Pattern Library), the couching stitches are shorter - but not as tiny as in Bokhara.