Hi my sewing friends! Today I am bringing you something a little bit different. For a while now I am spending time learning and improving my hand embroidery skills which is getting better with every stitch I make….in my humble opinion anyway hihihi. To help me learn and discover new stitching techniques I decided to purchase an embroidery book for beginners. On my visit to Ray Stitch shop in London I had picked up a book called “The hand stitched flower garden” by Yuki Sugashima. What caught my attention is the simplicity of designes and a clarity of an instruction. I flipped through some pages to realize it is full of beautiful flower designes and many little project that can be customized by hand stitching a pattern.
The book
The book offers over 45 floral designes and other nature inspired templates divided into four seasons. Each season also contains 5 projects that can be chosen and customized with any of the motifs included in the book such as butterfly pin cushion, strawberry key chain, bittersweet oven mitt or snowberry brooch and surface and dimensional stitches and bead embroidery are used to complete individual design.
All designes show which hand stitching method should be used for the best outcome plus which DMC thread color is being used and how many strands are required.
There are more than 20 different stitches explained that are perfect for anyone interested in starting hand embroidery.
I had used templates included at the end of the book to pick a selection of motifs that I arranged randomly to get me started.
In the process I had learnt to embroider those designes by different hand stitching methods like split stitch, lazy daisy stitch, stem stitch, French knots, coral stitch, satin stitch, fly stitch, couching lines, needleweaving and double drizzle stitch. There are many more that I yet did not try, but so far I am ecstatic with the results. It is so true when people say that practice makes it perfect!
Final thoughts
I would highly recommend this book if your desire is to learn or expand your knowledge about hand embroidery. The book includes many fun projects that can be made for yourself or as a gift to your friends and family. I am starting to see a big improvement in my skills and the final outcome looks more neat and professional. Spending £13 was a good investment which already is bringing returns.
~Are you interested in learning hand embroidery or are a pro and have some favourite stitching techinques that you want to share? ~
Monika xxx
