Some time ago I showed you a filling stitch which consisted of a sequin suspended in the centre of a cut area by means of a sort of spider’s web stitch without the woven spider’s web bit. When I showed it on the Cross Stitch Forum without adding a description of how I had done it, one lady commented that she liked the way it was suspended using a square filet. This was interesting, and it made me look at the suspended sequin again. Yes, it could probably be worked that way – and that would be rather nice because it would mean the pair of designs in Heart’s Treasure would both use a variation on the square filet (the other one being the two-coloured variety).

So I set to work trying out various ways of suspending a sequin by means of a square filet. As the original spider’s web method I used was rather fiddly, one of the square filet ones was a very straightforward method of every time coming up through the sequin in the cut area and going down into the fabric in a corner, but that produced rather spreading holding threads instead of the slightly cord-like look I was aiming for.

That method didn’t work because there was no twist to the stitch, none of the “catching the loop” that is so characteristic of the square filet. But for reasons I won’t go into here doing exactly what you would do in a standard square filet didn’t work either; it needed an extra twist.

First bring the needle up in one corner of the cut area and thread on a sequin (picture 1 below), then take the needle down into the fabric into the next corner (picture 2) – this, by the way, can be either clockwise or anti-clockwise; either is fine, as long as you consistently stick with your choice throughout the project. Bring the needle up in the cut area in the second corner and catch the loop (picture 3), then take the needle over the loop and down into the gap again (picture 4). Don’t pull the thread too tightly at this point, and you will have to stabilise the sequin with your non-stitching hand during the first part of the stitch.

Now bring the needle up again through the sequin (picture 1 below), then take the needle down into the fabric in the next corner (picture 2). Come up again in the gap in the same corner, catching the loop (picture 3), take the thread over the loop, go down again into the gap and come up through the sequin (picture 4).

Continue like this until you come up though the sequin from the fourth corner, then take the the needle underneath the very first part of the stitch before going down into the fabric in the corner where you started. Hey presto, a suspended sequin in a square filet! Incidentally, this example was worked using two strands of stranded cotton, but one strand works equally well – it just shows a bit more of the sequin. Floche or another thin indivisible thread like #12 perle is also suitable.