How I Start My Embr‍‍‍oidery Art ‍‍‍

03/18‍‍‍/2018

Designing and starting the embroidery process is a long one, and can make or break your hoop. This is the steps that I take in prepping for a new piece but there are many ways to do it, so find what works for you!

Step 1: Get Inspiration

I am always on Instagram gaining inspiration from other creators and artists, I have my favourites (link to my top 10 Instagram’s post) but I also love that now I can follow “tags” so it is easier to find new accounts and gain for inspiration from them. I will also head to Pinterest when I have a general idea of the next piece.  

Step 2: Mood Board
‍‍Once I have ideas of what a cute hoop could be I will create a mood Board just as a Word Document with pictures and play around with the different fonts that I like and colours. I also will do this for custom orders and send them to the client and see how they would like their embroidery art.  

Step 3: Draw It Out

This changes day to day on what I feel like doing. A lot of the time I create a digital design on excel if the piece is more of a cross stitch and less free hand embroidery. I also will sometimes print out my design if it is a specific logo or shape so I can draw it out. I have seen many people use lightboxes or their laptop/tablet to copy on the fabric but I find it easier to just print it out and copy it. Sometimes I will also freehand draw and change as I go but will not typically does this for a custom embroidery piece.  

Step 4: Colour Choices

It is easy to think of colour but then you need to find them. In the past I have purchases so many multi-packs of 25-150 colours from amazon, so there are many different shades of the same colours and different quality. I now find it more helpful and less wasteful to go to a craft store and purchase DMC embroidery thread because with the codes you can know for sure that you will get the right and the same colour if you run out mid piece. They also have colour families that go very well together so building a colour theme is already done for you to simplify things.

Step 5: Know All The Different Stitches

To get a nice textured piece it is good to use different stitches (link to my basic stitches to learn as a beginner). I typically always have a tester hoop laying around to practice new stitches on or with new thread (thicker or thinner). This can also be helpful for spacing with lettering. Remember experimenting  is fun and if you don’t like the way something turns out try to finish it because once it is done the embroidery looks different than when it is in process.  

Step 6: Prep The Fabric A Hoop

Getting the tension of the fabric can be a little hard at first but with practice you will find a way that works for you. I will hook the fabric in the hoop and offset the two wooden hoops, tighten them and then pull the fabric as much as possible then tighten the hoop as much as possible then make the two pieces line up so it pulls the fabric a little more. You want the tension to be quite tight so it makes it easier to embroider on it.  

Step 7: Start the Embroidery!

You are now ready to execute the piece and to find out how I finish the piece I will be posting next week on how I make the back and change things to different types of pieces. e start of the second stitch. Continue stitching in the same manner, spacing the stitches at regular intervals, until you reach your ending point.

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