Embroidery Trial #1

After getting my new sewing machine and while going through my to-do list of projects, I remembered one that I’ve had fabric in a box for… for maybe 6 to 8 years. Eek! It’s been on hold for so long as it requires creating my own pattern, and I haven’t entirely designed said pattern yet. Excited to finally get working on it, I started thinking about the design, and suddenly had an epiphany that some small embroidery motifs would really give it that extra bit of awesome. One small problem- I didn’t know the first thing about embroidery!

I browsed around on Amazon, and ended up picking out two books:

• Long and Short Stitch Embroidery: A Collection of Flowers for instruction
• The Techniques of Japanese Embroidery for inspiration

When the books arrived, I pulled out my old embroidery thread stash (left over from masses of elementary school friendship bracelets) and some scrappy muslin, and concocted a color scheme to do a practice piece with. The “Long and Short Stitch” book is great. It has clear and easy to follow illustrations for stitches and techniques, photographs showing examples, four simple practice motifs to get you started, and beautiful patterns using all the techniques that the book teaches.

My little practice flower ended up much prettier than anticipated, so I added some script, finished off the back and edges, and am sending it over to my grandparents as a gift! :)

I’m sure those of you who know me realize how appropriate it is that buying a fancy new sewing machine would instigate me into learning hand stitching. My cats obviously got their short attention spans from me.

March 7, 2011 | Arts & Crafts