Embroidery seems like an old-school craft, but the possibilities are limitless. Stitchers like X are doing really interesting things with hand embroidery.
Once you have the technique down, and find your groove in regards to preparing all your materials, you can really get creative with your ideas and execution! For instance, I made postcards with with card stock and images cut from magazines, gift wrap, artwork, etc. that I mod-podged together and then stitched designs over the top of that.
When your wide world of embroidery starts expanding look into sashiko mending/embroidery or crewel embroidery. Try stitching on various materials, including your clothes and shoes.
There are many places to source materials for embroidery, including your local craft and fiber shops. I'm listing just a few below, but dig into the interwebs and your local stores to see what you can find!
A few recommended places to source materials include:
- Sublime Stitching---The penultimate embroidery shop. Jenny Hart, a former Austinite and current Californian, started Sublime out of her house in Windsor Park, Austin (right around the corner from my house!) before expanding a bit and moving to California. Their website has tutorials, materials, and inspiration galore. Sign up for the newsletter to get free tutorials delivered right to your email.
- Hawthorne Handmade---Hawthorne Handmade makes beautiful embroidery hoops for displaying or gifting your stitching and other high-end embroidery supplies.
- Local stitching meetups---Search Meetup.com or Facebook to see if there is a stitching meetup in your area. I am a member of two casual stitching Facebook groups that do both virtual and in-person meetups.
- Etsy---Etsy has a lot of great patterns from some talented stitchers. Ensure the one you purchase is an embroidery pattern, not cross-stitch or crewel or any other stitching discipline. We're embroidering here, people!
Now that I've been embroidering for a little while I see inspiration for stitching EVERYWHERE. I have too many ideas to keep up with, actually! I'm a slow stitcher but I also enjoy gathering inspirational resources so when I'm ready to pick up another project I don't have to spend time figuring that part out.
Look for inspiration in these places:
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Outdoors---Don't discount the genius of mother nature. Look for patterns, landscapes, designs, and inspiration right outside your door then draw it up for a stitching design. You can even stitch on fallen leaves if you're fancy.
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Books and magazines---Sometimes when I'm reading a magazine or looking through a craft, art, or stitching book, I see a graphic I just love. It's easy to transform pictures and images like this into embroidery designs with one of the mentioned transfer method. The same goes for paintings or drawings that you see and can trace---Even images of artwork can be printed, traced, and transferred for stitching.
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Instagram---There are so many great accounts, hashtags, and inspirational videos and tutorials to help support your new habit!
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Pinterest---Similar to Instagram, Pinterest is teeming with stitching inspiration, from other people's artwork to pre-made embroidery designs, and more! Search for anything that interests you and see what you can find.
Embroidery inspiration search on Pinterest
