r/Hand_Embroidery

I wanted to repair the holes while making sure the patch would be durable and wouldn't bulge or wrinkle in the creased areas.

For the embroidery, I used a homemade canvas made from ordinary cotton calico fabric. The embroidery took about a week to complete, working on it for a couple of hours each evening.

What do you think of the result?

Almost done, but ran out of beads. And I need to finish the eyes. Almost done for a trade in another sub for a gorgeous suncatcher.

A delightful commission finally completed. The face was hand embroidered separately on felt then attached to the piece. The bread, wine, cigarette and cheese are all stumpwork and the scarf is crocheted. Hope you enjoy! 🥖🧀💕

Some of the highlights of my year in no particular order:

• Visiting my family in Telford back in January where we went for walks and afternoon tea.
• Adopting a silly orange cat named Burrito.
• Passing my driving theory test and beginning driving lessons.
• Visiting Edinburgh Zoo for my birthday.
• Seeing my favourite book, Project Hail Mary, turned into a film.
• Picking up my first Monstera which is already turning into a total beast of a house plant.
• Visiting Pitlochry for a relaxing getaway.
• Seeing the dentist for the first time in 4 years only to find out that they're still in good shape.

I'd like to add some embroidery to this somehow. My skill level is solid intermediate. The heart is silk-screened, I think. It's not a hard plasticky patch that will peel off, and I can see some ink bleed through on the back if that makes a difference.

Any ideas? I'm not very creative when it comes to this type of thing and usually just follow a pattern or stencil, so any ideas are so welcome and much appreciated!!

Just started my embroidery journey and I'm having difficulty with satin stitches. Mine are bumpy and mad, whereas every video I watch they end up just, doing it and it looks amazing? I'm guessing it's practice that would help, but my biggest issue is how to get them to all face the same direction and lay flat. Here's a WIP, the tiny beige/cream colored leaves and black eyes/nose are all satin stitch. The eyes are fine (I think?), it's those FLIPPIN LEAVES that got me. Any advice welcome!

Also, pattern is from Bella Savoy on Etsy!

Finally done w/ my second Embroidery Project! ☺️🧵

I wanted to experiment with using Changzhou Random-Stitch Embroidery—a traditional Chinese embroidery technique—for something a little more playful.

Instead of a classic subject like flowers or landscapes, I stitched this small dinosaur using layered silk threads to create texture and depth.

I really enjoy seeing heritage crafts evolve into modern designs while keeping the handmade process alive.

What modern subject would you love to embroider?

I often see posts across social media from stitchers wondering how the heck you’re supposed to manage all those colors and needles while threadpainting without everything turning into a tangled mess, and I absolutely understand this feeling! Once upon a time I had a vision for a certain project, and through lots of youtube, trial and error, and hours and hours of stitching, I’ve finally dialed in a workflow I’m happy with. It’s been making detailed embroidery more enjoyable and accessible to me, and I hope it might do the same for someone else!

There’s a lot to it and I’m happy to answer specific questions, but here are the highlights:

No knots: Starting threads with a waste knot and even just two tiny backstitches is plenty secure and makes the back much smoother. Threads can be ended the same way, tuck two tiny backstitches somewhere inconspicuous and snip the thread from the top. Aside from aesthetic reasons, this ensures you can really pack in and layer stitches without worrying about having to poke through thick knots.

Keep threads on top: I like to work with a gradient of 5 or 6 colors at a time, keeping my needles in order off to the side. The threads are parked in an area that will later be covered up. To move a thread to my working area I make a tiny stab stitch and bring it back to the front where needed. This makes it easy to do all my work on the front of the fabric, and not having to flip over to look at the back speeds things up.

Have floss ready to thread: I like to use floss drops because I can reference my color palette right away, threads are already cut, and I can easily pick single strands out without any tangling. When I finish a thread and need a new strand of that color, I make sure to match the color on the needle to the new strand before discarding as some of them can get hard to tell apart. Having thread pre-cut and ready to use also really helps me stay in the groove and spend time stitching vs fighting with a new skein of floss.

I hope this is helpful and encourages someone to give threadpainting a shot!!

I have done 3 embroidery Etsy projects that have guides and floss included.
This was my first time drawing on my own and figuring out what stitches and floss to use. It’s my sister’s favorite character so I wanted to hand make her a birthday gift.
I hope she likes it.

A handmade portrait study by Di Jing, a master of Changzhou random-stitch embroidery. The work uses layered silk threads and crossing stitches to create light, shadow, texture, and expression, a technique often described as painting with threads.

Finally finished this and wanted to share it with the world!
I’m very new to embroidery but read a lot of tips and watched a lot of videos while doing this. I’ve only really done two stitch samplers before this. It’s a 3 inch hoop I think

Feedback welcome!

Some learning points (and questions) from me, in case this helps other people, or other people can help me:

1. I started using 2 threads, which was recommended in the pattern but it looked really chunky and awkward, so I changed to one. I wonder if it would’ve been different if I’d used 2 strands, but longer stitches, and had made sure to split each stitch.
2. I really struggled with stitch length, I always thought shorter, smaller stitches would be better but it seems that might not be the case??
3. And I was really surprised by how thick and stiff (haha, any euphemisms were unintended) the fabric became, and how difficult it was to push the needle through at some points!
4. I got really annoyed with the sticky pattern, so after I had the outsides of the pattern done, I washed it off and filled in without that stuff, it made it much easier

The pattern is from Paraffle (www.paraffle.com), they seem to have some really nice patterns, I rate it.

I worked on it for about a year. The background was done with freehand embroidery using pure black thread.The cat's face was the hardest part to embroider. It took me 5 months, and I used mulberry silk for the whole embroidery.

This is hand embroidery from the Nilgiri Hills in South India, made by women of the indigenous Toda community.

What you're looking at: the pattern isn't traced or printed onto the cloth. There's no frame holding it. The maker counts the individual threads of the weave with her fingers and builds the geometry from memory, which is why it comes out so precise it's fully reversible, with no "wrong side."

A shawl worked this way can take around three weeks. It's slow because there's no way to make it faster and still have it be this. Fewer than a few hundred women still do it.

After taking a 10 year break from embroidery I decided to start a project of embroidering my fave pokemon evolutions to frame and display. This is the first! Pretty happy with how it turned out.