DIY Hand Embroidery - Owl Always Love You

Hi everyone!

I’ve been practicing my hand embroidery, and I have a fun project to show you!

Supplies:

Doodle Stitching: Embroidery & Beyond by Aimee Ray (You can find it here!)
Embroidery hoop
Embroidery floss
Needle
Fabric (I used muslin from the clearance section)
Pencil

DMC floss colors:

498 – Pink
727 – Yellow
798 – Blue
799 – Light Blue
823 – Navy
B5200 – White

This is the design idea I’ll be working off of.

You’ll notice that I chose to do mine differently in some areas! You should experiment with yours as well and see all the fun designs that you can come up with!

We’re going to start the project by hooping our fabric.

With the blue thread, Back Stitch a wing shape.

If you’re nervous about winging it (no pun intended!), you can draw a wing shape or trace the entire design onto your fabric before you begin stitching.

With our light blue thread, we’re going to begin stitching the head and the ears.

Continue stitching around the wing to form the remainder of the body.

When you get close to the “tail” of the bird, make sure the owl body lines up on the top and the bottom of the wing.

Now we’re going to make little circles for the eyes.

Use tiny stitches to make the circles. The smaller the stitch, the more control you have over the shape of whatever you’re trying to make!

My second circle turned out WAY better than my first.

That just goes to show that practice makes perfect!

Use the yellow thread to create three, little feathers with the Lazy Daisy stitch.

Add more detail to the wing with three Straight Stitches below the Lazy Daisy feathers.

Continue using the yellow thread to create little V’s along the chest of our bird.

The V’s are made with the Back Stitch. Almost every stitch in this tutorial is the Back Stitch.

Continue to add the V’s.

Once the V’s are complete, we’re going to move on from the bird. We will come back to him later and finish up his eyes and beak.

Now, we’re going to start adding teardrop, feather shapes all around our owl.

Each teardrop is made with the Back Stitch.

Be sure to mix up your thread colors and the placement of the teardrops!

If you don’t like what you’ve stitched, use the blunt end of your needle to remove the stitches. Once the unwanted stitches have been removed, smooth out your fabric (this usually eliminates the needle holes) and stitch it again!