I’ve started playing with Embroidery…and I love it!

Hello and happy Wednesday!

So all of my sewing stuff has been packed up and is ready for the move. I experienced a moment of weakness when I took stuff out to make a shirt…and then promptly realized I couldn’t find the fabric I wanted and I had sold my chair. Sewing on the floor is not fun and not really an option with how much of a mess my apartment is right now. So, I decided to head to my nearest Walmart (it was around 10 pm when I went, I wasn’t about to wait for things to be delivered) and pick up a few embroidery supplies.

My haul:

DMC cotton floss in the colors I wanted to use for the patterns (shown below)

Embroidery needles, sizes 3-9

2 pack of blank kitchen towels, 100% cotton

An assortment of iron on patterns

An ugly neon green 6″ hoop (they had limited colors/sizes, I hate neon colors)

A super sweet, if not ugly colored, travel bag!

The whole kit and kaboodle!

It’s got pockets and things, very handy.

I’m in love!

After a couple days I have to say…I love embroidery! Getting my stitch length down and even is tough but I have already looked up a couple tricks to help with that so I’ll be implementing those soon. For now I’m just enjoying playing around with a new creative process and experimenting with stitches, textures, all that good stuff.

I think what’s really awesome too is these will make great gifts. An embroidered towel or something will be a much easier gift than something sewn and will be much better received. My family is thankfully very awesome that way. They like handmade gifts, so I don’t have to worry about putting in the effort only to have it be less-than-enthusiastically accepted. My mother and grandmother especially will adore whatever I do, which also encourages me to do something fun and different. I’ve always loved embroidery hoops for decoration. I need to learn how to do that framing technique but I have time.

I really do love coffee so these will go on things meant for me. 😀

I got this one to play around with textures and embroidering fonts.

Classic tea patterns. I’m using the top right pattern now.

Aaaaaaaaaaand this is where I went super nerdy. I’m going to be embroidering shit about sewing. I honestly am so excited I can’t wait to to this for shirts and skirts and stuff.

I’m also glad I enjoy this because the idea behind picking embroidery rather than knitting (also a cool hobby) was to encourage me to do more hand stitching with my sewing projects. I know the stitches are not the same and all but just enjoying the act of sitting down and stitching is a great place for me to start. Before, I hated hand stitching because I thought it was boring. Now I know that it’s actually quite a nice alternative and the results are amazing. I can also add embroidery to future projects to add an extra special touch. Embroidery art is also very special and I’d like to try it out, see how I like it.

So far I’ve only tried back stitch, satin stitch, and french knots. Soon I’ll try others, some of the more decorative ones. I want to get a little book for a guide and everything. I know I can look it all up online, but who doesn’t like a book to hold on to?

Using an iron on pattern was actually incredibly easy and I highly recommend them for beginners. Mine were cheap (1 or 2 dollars for multiple designs that are multi use) and are cute patterns to start with for my first few projects. There is also a huge assortment so there is something for everyone. Like sewing though, make sure you wash whatever you’re going to embroider and

Here are pics of what I have so far, and of course follow me on Instagram @costumesandfashionbybethany to see more updates as they come!

I still have a lot to go but for three days, and starting school again on day 3, I feel I did pretty good!

French knots! I had a lot of fun making them. There are only three, the very top dots are french knots. The others I did stitches in a circle, weird but I like how they turned out. That knot on the right turned out so pretty I love it!

I took this picture to show you my uneven squares. This was funny in my opinion and I’m glad they aren’t even. First tries should also leave room for improvement.

Until next time,

Bethany Out