Tuesday 3 February 2009

A bit of embroidery practice . . .

Last weekend, I thought I'd have a bash at a bit of embroidery practice - I've been wanting to embroider the features on my Rag Dolls but haven't really had the time to practice. I had bought some embroidery thread and a hoop a few months back so I decided to take the bull by the horns! I actually used the same material I use to make my Rag Dolls which is a curtain lining fabric but used it double-fold.

I tried a bit of chain stitch to start off with . . .

Here's the book I used (but not this particular page - that's a bit too advanced!!). It had really good illustrations though.


. . . I just made up shapes as I went along to practice the stitches with,

I ended up with a piece of 'freeform' embroidery using chain stitch, french knots and finally stem stitch. I love the way 'french knots' add texture - it's a cute wee stitch!

I like the way that the embroidery hoop keeps the fabric taught and you feel like you're working on a piece of canvas. I almost felt like I could doodle away once I'd mastered some of the stitches. I did find it really time consuming though, but that's coming from an amateur embroiderer! 'Feeling Stitchy' is a great blog to see some really inspiring embroidery and has great tutorials if you get really interested!

I might adopt it as a new hobby to unwind from stuffing toys! Don't think I'll ever become a master 'embroiderer' though!

Bye for Now!

(I've just realised I've done en entire post without mentioning Harris Tweed - now we can't have that now - hee hee!!)

4 comments:

Swirlyarts said...

Oh it looks good! I have lots of embroidery books, threads and even a couple of hoops in my craft room so I need to have a go at it too. We can be master embroiderers together ;)

Jennifer Rose said...

looks good! :D I love doing all the different stitches, it can be so relaxing :) and can add a lot of detail to pieces like your dolls

Tweed Thoughts said...

Just thought I'd better add that I don't think I've quite got the hang of these pesky 'french knots' yet (much as I love them) - ah well, back to the drawing board :)

Anonymous said...

I'm just learning embroidery and your stitching is so much neater and more precise than mine. I'll have to try out the hoop and see if that helps. Thanks for the Feelin Stitchy link- I can always use tutorials!