Simple Embroidery

As soon as our fabric arrives to us there's so much to do to get ready for launch.  I have a very short amount of time to make everything that will go into the Lookbook.

It's busy, but also enjoyable to binge listen to an audiobook or lecture and hide in the sewing room for a long day of sewing.

But ironically, the first thing I want to do every time our new collection arrives is to put a little piece of the prints into a hoop and hand stitch a little.

 So, I thought I'd share my fun with you, and tell you a little about my playful first projects with our new collection.

First off, I use SF101 on the back of every piece of fabric. I find sometimes I get indents on the surface of the fabric from the knots on the back, and using that light touch of woven fusible interfacing keeps the front of the work looking great.

These hoops are a very cute 4" and if you're a Shop Owner, they can be purchased through Brewer or if you're shopping for yourself, here's Amazon.ca.

You'll see all these embroidery stitches are very basic, and it's not fine and detailed work.  Most times I'm using all 6 strands of floss, and adding simplistic little embellishments to the artwork.   

This is a simple running stitch, and singular chain stitches for the leaves.  I'm using 6 strands of DMC in a soft pink.

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These are french knots, with 6 strands of Aurifil Cotton Floss in a light peach.

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These are very basic satin stitches using silk ribbon embroidery ribbon.  The white is 3/8" wide, and the yellow is 3/16" wide.

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These are very basic satin stitches using silk ribbon embroidery ribbon.  The silk ribbon is 1/4" wide. Then I did some very basic satin stitch with 3 colours of 6 ply DMC floss.  I used a red, bubble gum pink and soft pink.

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This is usually called a seed stitch and is meant to be random, but instead I did a swarm effect and made the seed stitches look a little directional.  That's usually a seed stitch faux-pas, but it was fun to explore nonetheless.  I went around in circles, spiralling out and around as I filled the hoop.  I used perle cotton thread in a pale blue.

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I stitched little X's in 6 strands of Aurifil Floss in a pale robin's egg blue.
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I'd love to know hoe you would embellish your favourite print!