Basic Embroidery Stitches

Hi everyone!

I got bored the other night and decided that I wanted to try hand embroidery!

I went to my local Joann Fabrics and bought some embroidery essentials!

I looked through several of the instruction books they had and went with 500 Simply Charming Designs for Embroidery.

I chose Simply Charming because the stitching instructions included good illustrations and were easy to understand!

There are a lot of really pretty blue threads in the DMC Home Decor pack, so I used one of them for my stitching practice!

Backstitch

I tried the Backstitch first!  I’ve used this stitch before, so I didn’t have much trouble with it!

Outline stitch

I think I did pretty well when I tried this stitch initially, but when I tried to make a decorative “N” I had some serious issues!

I did well when I was making a straight line, but the second I tried to make a curved line things got weird! 🙁  I will try again though!

Straight stitch

For some reason, my straight stitch isn’t very straight, and the stitches got progressively shorter!

Chain stitch

I think my chain stitch looks pretty good, except my little chains aren’t as wide and open as the ones in the book.  That could be fixed with practice though!

French Knots stitch

As you can see, I had some serious trouble with the French Knots.

I only got one to work in my nine attempts!  That’s just sad!

Lazy Daisy Stitch

Once again, my loops aren’t as nice as the book’s, but that’s okay!  Practice makes perfect!

Blanket stitch

This one wasn’t too bad!  I do need to work on my consistency though!  My stitch length tends to fluctuate!

Fly stitch

I had some trouble getting both arms of the “V” the same length.  I also had trouble with the angles.  I think my first ones looks pretty good though!

Feather stitch

This stitch got easier as I went along.  It took me several tries to figure out the positioning and the angles.

Cross stitch

Once again, I had trouble with consistency!  I think the individual X’s look good though!

All in all, I think my first foray into hand embroidery went well!  With just a little bit of practice, I’ll soon be making big, fancy things!