Embroidered Sugar Skulls

Happy (belated) Dia de Los Muertos! I made this sugar skull embroidery pattern for the holiday and just had to share it! You can find out how to make some of your own great sugar skull embroidery patterns here.

To stitch your own sugar skull you will need:

Fabric of your choosing
A variety of embroidery flosses (I prefer bright colors for these)
needle
scissors
embroidery hoop
transfer pen

You can use the above pattern that I created, or make one of your own using the templates on my Sugar Skull Embroidery Pattern post. Once you are satisfied with your pattern, use an embroidery transfer pen to trace it onto your fabric. Then stitch away in the colors of your choosing.

I found these neat glow in the dark threads online and ordered some to weave in with my embroidery floss. I'll be honest, the pink didn't work at glowing nearly as well as the green or white, so in the future I'd probably leave it out, but it was fun to try something new!. This would also be a great project to experiment with adding small beads (you could even get small strands of beads and use the couching technique to stitch your patterns with them!).

Happy November!

Embroidery Stitch Library + A Giveaway (CLOSED)

The Embroidery Stitch Library is up and running! If you haven't already, go take a look and let me know what you think. The library will be updated frequently with not only embroidery stitches, but patterns and projects as well (so you can have some inspiration for practicing your stitches!).

Each stitch has a step by step photo tutorial, with written instructions (in English). I have tried to make the photographs easy enough to follow that you can learn a stitch from start to finish without really needing to read the whole post.

Projects in the library link back to recommended stitches, if there is a stitch you don't know you will be able to click back and learn the stitch while you make a fun new project. There are even tutorials on creating your own patterns to embroider!

To celebrate the stitch library going live, I am hosting a giveaway of embroidery goodies! The giveaway is open worldwide and the winner will be announced Nov 5th. To enter, use the rafflecopter widget below - allow time to load.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Giveaway prizes include:

Gingher embroidery scissors
Embroidery hoop
pack of embroidery needles
package of sewing themed iron on embroidery patterns
assorted DMC embroidery flosses
1 yard of cotton muslin fabric for practicing your stitches
Misc. crafty odds and ends from my stash

Embroidery How To: Chain Stitch

Welcome back everyone! Here is another great embroidery stitch for you to try out, Chain Stitch! This stitch is great for outlining when you want a more decorative look than a straight or back stitch. It's also really easy to do, and once you practice a little it isn't too difficult to get a chain stitch that looks quite uniform.

I was feeling a little fancy for this tutorial and wanted to try out some metallic thread. This is a very fine braid metallic thread from Kreinik Threads, and it great for hand embroidery (but it would also work in a machine).

Next, I traced a curvy line onto my fabric. Chain stitch is great because it easily goes around curves as well as straight lines, while still looking uniform and flowing well in your work. If you are just starting out, you may just want to try a straight line as a stitch sample, but I would definitely recommend trying out some curves as well.

Start your stitch by pulling your thread through your fabric back to front, as shown in the image above.

Next, you will complete a single chain "loop" by pushing your needle back through the fabric at your initial starting point (or very close to it), and bringing the needle back up through the fabric at point 3- a little farther down your pattern or practice line. Pull your thread taught, but not too tight, to create a nice little loop! Now step 3 in the diagram above becomes the beginning of your next loop. Continue on until you have finished your practice line.

On the final chain loop, you will pass your needle back through the fabric from front to back securing your chain "loop" and be able to tie off the thread or weave it in neatly.

What stitches would you like to see next?


Threads for this post were provided by Kreinik Threads. Manufactured in Parkersburg, WV.

Embroidery How To: Cross Stitch

This installment of the embroidery tutorial series is Cross Stitch. I really like cross stitching because you don't need to transfer your design directly to the fabric, you can follow a printed or on screen pattern that is blocked out in the different colors you are using (basically like looking at a pixelated image or 8-bit video game graphic). This tutorial shows how to make a single Cross Stitch, as well as how to do several same-colored stitches in a row.

First, cross stitch is generally done on a specific cross stitch fabric , as show above. The weave of these fabrics makes it easy to see perfect squares, and the corners of these squares, where your stitches will start and end.

Start your stitch by pulling the needle through your fabric at one of the little corner holes, back to front (as shown above). It doesn't matter of you start at the top or bottom, as long as you keep your stitches uniform (if you start in the top corner, start all of your stitches in the top corner). This helps keep the back neat and avoid extra knotting while you stitch.

Next, complete the first part of your stitch by passing your needle through the hole located diagonal from your starting corner.

This will give you the fist part of your cross stitch (a diagonal line) as shown above.

To complete your single cross stitch, you will make another diagonal stitch that crosses over the first. As most cross stitch patterns don't have a lot of floating single stitches, you will generally work in lines of stitches instead. This process is shown below.

As you can see in the photo above, when making a row of stitches, you make the first diagonal stitch of your cross all the way down the line before making the second crossed stitch. This helps for a couple of reasons: it keeps the back of your work looking neater, and it help you to be able to quickly and easily count your stitches in your pattern.

I work my stitch lines from left to right initially, so when I make the "cross" stitch going back I work right to left. This makes it so you start and end in about the same place. You can then either tie a know and cut your ends, or weave the ends into your back stitches neatly.

Above you can see the back side of my row of stitches, a nice neat row of parallel stitches with my edges ready to be tied or weaved.

Cross stitch is a great stitch for making items like this, and you can easily use patterns from Perler beads to create sewn items instead. Cross stitch is also great to use with plastic canvas to make ornaments.

Embroidery How To: Split Stitch

It has been awhile since my last embroidery tutorial, but here is a new stitch for you to try out- the Split Stitch!

Split stitch is another great stitch to use for embroidering lines or outlining shapes in your embroidery work. Start by pulling your thread through your fabric from back to front.

Next, you will close your stitch by sewing back through your fabric from front to back. It is important to choose the length of your stitches carefully, you want to make sure to keep individual stitches as uniform as possible (I generally like a shorter stitch, but each project varies).

Then, make your second stitch by pushing your needle up through the center of your first stitch, splitting the first stitch with your second. You want to split the stitch both lengthwise and widthwise (6 strand embroidery floss is necessary as you can easily keep 3 strands on each side of your needle while stitching, and you must be able to pull your stitches through your floss). Continue along your pattern (or just freehand straight lines for practice) and continue making equal length stitches for a uniform look.

Your stitch will end up looking like a small braid (it resembles a mini chain stitch--coming soon). This is a great option for people who find something like backstitch to look too plain in their work.