A hand embroidery project can be a fulfilling and rewarding craft, allowing you to unleash your creativity while creating beautiful, personalized pieces, sometimes as quick as a matter of a few hours. Give life to a tired piece of clothing or adorn your favorite accessories with beautiful custom embroidered pieces. This step-by-step guide will take you through the process of starting and completing a hand embroidery project.
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Gather Your Supplies: Before diving into your embroidery project, it's essential to gather all the necessary supplies. Here's a basic list to get you started:
- Embroidery hoop
- Fabric (cotton or linen work well for beginners)
- Embroidery floss
- Needles (size 5 is a good standard size to begin with)
- Scissors
- Transfer method (I have a blog on the three common ways to transfer your pattern)
- Pattern or design (any of my floral letter patterns make for great beginner projects)
Choose Your Design: Knowing what you want to embroider is half the challenge of getting started. If you are a complete beginner, opt for simple patterns with clear lines and minimal details. Start by embroidering on a fabric hoop versus an article of clothing, bag, shoes etc. Make sure the design fits within the dimensions of your chosen hoop size.
My Practice Stitch Guide is the perfect place to begin if you have never picked up a needle and thread. It walks you through 14 basic stitches and has practice wildflowers at the end. There are written and video instructions for each stitch which makes learning this fun craft easy and stress free (the way crafting should be 😉)
Prepare Your Fabric: Secure your fabric within the embroidery hoop, ensuring it's taut but not overly stretched. This provides a stable surface for your stitches and makes the embroidery process more manageable. Some T shirt material is a bit too stretchy and if it is pulled too tight, your stitches will look funny after you take the hoop off. A medium cotton or linen fabric is a good fabric to begin with.
Click image above to direct you to my YouTube video on how to hoop your fabric.
Transfer Your Design: If you are a beginner, start with the tracing method. Pick a design that is simple and easy to trace. A heat erasable pen will be your best friend in this step. If you mess up, simply use a mini iron or hair dryer to "erase" the ink and then trace again. This is also how you will remove the line work after you have completed all the stitch work.
Click image above to direct you to my YouTube video on how to trace your pattern.
Prepare Your Needle: After your design is transferred you are ready to begin stitching! You will need to knot one end of your thread and thread the other end with a needle. It is also important to use the correct needle size for your project type. Usually sizes 5 to 9 are a good all purpose needle size. Needles come in sizes 1 - 12 with size 1 having the largest needle eye and size 12 having the smallest needle eye. They also are thicker and longer the smaller the number. This is mostly important for when you are using different thread strands.
You can separate the embroidery floss into individual strands to create different line weights within your embroidery work. Using 1 strand creates very small fine details and 6 strands (what most embroidery floss is composed of) will create your thickest line weights. You can double up your thread if you need something thicker but this is usually for textured work, not simple stitches. Needle sizes 5 to 9 are good when you are using anywhere from 1 to 4 strands. If you are using all 6 strands, you may want to opt for a size 3 needle but you can probably get away with a size 5. It might just take a few tries to get all 6 strands through the needle eye.
Click on the image above to see how to split 6 strand embroidery floss.
Start Stitching: There are various embroidery stitches you can use, but as a beginner, start with basic stitches such as the Backstitch, French knot, Woven Wheel, Lazy Daisy, or Fishbone Stitch. All my beginner patterns come with a stitch guide sharing which stitches are best for which element within the design. There is also a written guide with video links as well. Follow the written guide with your traced design, stitching along the lines to bring your embroidery to life. My intermediate patterns will not always come with a stitch guide as there should be creative freedom to patterns as well.
Explore Texture and Detail: As you gain confidence in your embroidery skills, experiment with different stitches to add texture and detail to your project. Instead of French knots for a flower center, try a loop stitch instead. Turkey Work Stitches are fun and create a really nice tufted look. These are a little more intermediate but certainly can be mastered after a few tries. You can also mix and match colors to create visual interest. This is nice for leaves and petals to create variation and depth to your stitch work. For example, use a lighter thread color at the top of a leaf and a darker complimenting color for the bottom of a leaf to create some shadow and dimension.
Finishing Touches: Once you've completed your hooped embroidery, you will have to finish your hoop. If you used heat erasable pens, follow the instructions to remove any visible traces. There are many ways to finish a project, consider framing your finished piece or incorporating it into a larger project. You can make patches if you stitch on thicker felt versus cotton fabric. Truly there are so many ways to add embroidery to anything your heart desires!
Click the image above to see how to finish a hoop the quick and easy way.
Once you've mastered the basics, there is so much more to explore in the world of embroidery. There are hundreds of stitches to try, many unique ways to add embroidery to clothing and accessories, and numerous ways to make beautiful, hand crafted gifts and personalized goods for yourself!
