Monday, November 16, 2009

embroider with me now...

Let's do a nice, slow 4 day tutorial for that
sweet little poppy embroidery.
Because embroidery is so incredibly
impressive and I said I would.
Get crafty.



For the first step, you need three colors of floss...
A monochromatic group with one light,
on medium and one dark.
I chose pink for my first group.
But, the first step is tracing the above
image onto some tissue weight woven
fabric. I, personally, am making a little sachet,
hence the tissue weight fabric. But, you can make
whatever you want. Just use a woven and make sure
it is light enough to see the design through.
If you want to use a thick fabric, I recommend
using a Heat Transfer Pencil instead.

Here's me.. pretending to be left handed.

Start with your darkest color.. split your yarn skein into
3 and 3 threads and put one aside. Thread your needle
and knot the bottom.
First, we are going to practice the first step on
our embroidery scrap.

The first stitch is super easy.. it is the 'long and short' stitch.
Start with one row of stitches.. making one 'short stitch'
followed by one 'long' and another 'short'.
Make your stitches directly on top of each other.

Then, start a new row directly next to it, left or right, and
do the opposite.. start with a 'long', then a 'short' and
another 'long'. The key here is that the ends will
be staggered and when you add in new color, the colors
will move nicely into one another.
Make a few rows for practice of this first color... do 4.

Then introduce your second color and your third.
Continue on the same long and short lines you already
created and simply sew the new color stitch
in the length that is up next. If you ended with a 'short',
for example, do a 'long' with you new color.

Excuse the wide variety of stitches on my embroidery
scrap... it is full of practices.

Ok, now let's apply what we've practiced to the real deal.
We are starting with the flower petals.

Yes, this picture is fuzzy. Clearly, my hand was shaking
with excitement.

In the first little block area, 'long and short' stitch
your first color.

When you are done with the first color, layer in the next color
with long and short stitches into the next little box.


For the last and lightest color at the top of the petals,
I tend to cut off the long and short all together
and just do single stitches right next to each other all the way
around. This is technically a 'satin' stitch and I think
looks nice and shiny for the end of the petals.

Step one is complete! Small victories!
More to follow later.

In case you truly are a craft novice and this is
boggling your mind, let me remind you to tie off each color
with a knot when you are done and clip it short.

You can do it!

10 comments:

  1. so crafty!! I hope you made me one. i cherish my blowfish pillow everyday

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  2. ha!
    this one's got your name all over it! (you asked for it).
    i love that blow fish pillow. send me a photo!

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  3. this christmas it's all about making it yourself ... no matter what the commercials say... this is the perfect way to do it.

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  4. I love this and I love your embroidery- but I seriously don't think it's something I can embrace! I love all things crafty- but embroidery and I are just not very good friends!!!!!

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  5. long and short. weird, i never knew! okay, i can totally do this. what kind of things are good to embroider? things that don't get washed a lot, yeah?

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  6. anything woven... dish towels, woven shirts, hankies. yes, hankies.
    you can wash no prob if you do a good job.

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  7. there are a few of us at a previous place of employment that think you should hold a class on embroidery in OC so we can all come and pay you to teach us cool things. just a thought :)

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  8. sounds good ame. christmas crafting. lets set it up. i have a big classroom here.

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  9. I love this!!! Can't wait to try it myself! Where do you get your materials. Can I just use any type of embroidery floss? What size needle do you usually use? Enlighten me please!

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  10. OK! i got my ring thing, needles, floss, fabric and a how-to book! i am sooo ready to tackle this new craft (thanks to you!)!!! i was thinking of doing a few pillows and then graduate on to heavier fabrics for the carry-all!!!

    ReplyDelete

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