Learning the (Very Small) Ropes

Last week I decided in the face of a new project and years of interest inspired by Pinterest to start embroidery.  This week I worked on some of the basic stitches to get rolling in my journey with embroidery.

One of my first lessons in the past week was that the fabric that's being embroidered needs to be taut like a drum or a trampoline, depends on your life experiences.  Point being, it has a little bit of give, but ultimately is smooth and tight.

Since this looping stitch is a classic in finishing edges and creating shapes in embroidery, I thought it would be a good thing to focus on to get the hang of thinking in terms of how things are made in this crafty art.

This stitch is relatively simple but still managed to warp my brain a couple of times.  Basically all that you have to do though is start with the needle at the bottom (wherever that is for you) and then poke it through to wherever you want the top, then pull the slack under the needle to the direction where it will be caught by the new stitch.  

And if that sounds like a bunch of nonsense words to you, the picture below is a bit better at explaining than I am.

After trying out my hand at the new stitch I tried something a little basic but stylised to accent the mountains I made.

After which I promptly returned how to do these sort of chain stitches.  

This stitch is a lot like the one I did in red except instead I kept the stitches closer together to make a more clear chain out of the thread.  

This created a nice textured effect that made some happy flowing grass for my mountains and star.

While this all seems basic to many, I'm excited to share the progress made just in the last week, as well as the other things that will be coming soon as I satisfy my learning itch! 

Stay sweet, stay crafty, and stay tuned.