Create Custom Hoop Art: Hand Embroidery for Beginners

1. Introduction: Look at all of these details. Isn't embroidery awesome? Whether you want to add a little extra flourish to your home decor or even apparel. Hand embroidery is a great skill to learn. And did you know that you can even make Custom Gifts, wall Art with hand embroidery? That's right. If you're new to hand embroidery and you're not sure where to begin then this class is right for you. Hi, I'm Lauren Weber, the artists and quilter behind Garden Girl Studio, if in quilting for over 25 years. And I've had quilts featured in both Art quilting Studio magazine and displayed a national shows. Adding details is my favorite part of Art. Quilting in embroidery is one of my go-to techniques for adding embellishments. And even beyond the world of closing, I love reaching for hand embroidery project at the end of a long day, finding my rhythm stitching is super relaxing and I'd love to help you find your rhythm to. The project for this class is to create a simple hand embroidery project customized with something that you love. This project is ideal for personalized gifting, wall Art, or even holiday decor. A cover core hand embroidery techniques to help you get started into set your project up for success. Not only am I going to break the process down into Easy to follow steps, but we're also keeping this low pressure in this class. You don't have to worry about perfect stitches. We will cover how to use classic tools, such as six Strand Embroidery Floss, how to load an embroidery hoop, and even An easy way to thread your Sewing Needle. I'm also going to walk you through how to do a great beginner embroidery stitch, the split stitch, which is perfect for doing linework and lettering in your projects. Also going to demonstrate how you can create a simple lettering design that you can use as a template to guide your stitching. If you're not comfortable with creating your own custom Embroidery Design, never fear, I'm going to be providing a few template designs that you can use to practice the techniques that we cover in this class. Plus, I'm going to show you how to add a little extra glands so that we can take your project. The next level, this class is intended for beginners, but Stitches of all Sewing levels are welcome to join in on the fund. In addition to building new Sewing skills, this class will help you expand your creativity as you create your own custom design. The techniques we learned in this class are also a great way to practice mindfulness. I am going to encourage you to slow down, find your rhythm and enjoy the stitching process. You can use the skills that you learned in this class. Take a step back from your busy day as you create something new with out a doubt, hand embroidery can be a great resource to add to your creative tool box. By the end of this class, you'll not only have new Sewing skills, but you will also have a great foundation for embellishment projects. So grab your favorite Sewing supplies and let's get stitching 2. Embroidery Overview: Welcome, I'm so glad that you're here. Embroidery is the Art of decorative stitching. Embroidery can be hand stitched or machine stitched. But in this class we're going to be focusing on hand embroidery. Embroidery is amazing. It can take a simple piece of fabric and elevate it to the next level by adding flourishes and details. And when we're working by hand, we have full control of where those stitches are going to be. Now, if you're new to Hand Embroidery, keep in mind that this is considered a slow Stitching Art. Slow and steady is good. There's no need to rush these projects personally, I find that when I start rushing, are trying to move through my hand embroidery or projects quickly. That's when I make mistakes. When my thread starts getting tangled, when the project just isn't going to come out as smoothly as I like. So be sure to take your time, go nice and easy, and enjoy the process. You can take some practice to find your rhythm, but once you have it, it is so worthwhile, you're going to learn your stitches. And then once you've learned your stitches, you'll be able to do them almost rhythmically. And then you're going to be able to just start creating and building your portfolio of Embroidery projects. The techniques I've shown you in this class are techniques that I've found that work best when you're first learning how to sell. And even as someone who spends Sewing for over 20 years, I still use these techniques if you aren't experienced tissue. And do you find other techniques and tools that work better for you by all means, use them. That is what this is all about. Making sure that you can find a practice, a technique that is going to work best for you and your project. Feel free to adapt these techniques to work for the tools that you have and the project that you're working on. If you do have special techniques and tools that you like to use, be sure to share them with a group, share them in a discussion panel or in your class projects so that we can learn from you, so that we can discuss it, so that we can all learn and grow as a group. That's what we're all here for. If you're a beginner and you're ready to learn some basic hand-stitching tools and techniques. I'm going to cover some core techniques that are going to help you get started. So if you're ready, let's dive in 3. Class Project: Let's talk about your class project. I'm going to recommend that you work on a small project to get started. A simple three-inch, four-inch hoop that is customized with something that you love. In this class, we're gonna be focusing on lettering and linework and customization for your class project. I want you to create your own little three-inch, four-inch embroidery project that you can use to hang as wall Art. You can use it as an ornament or a decoration for the holidays. The possibilities are endless. It's totally up to you, but I want you to start with a little three or four inch hoop. You're going to choose a personalization. That means something to you. Can be a FirstName, LastName, a family member. It can be a place that you visited, place that you love. It can be a special word that means something to you or a special small quote that means something to you wherever you choose, you're going to create a little template. I'm going to have you Hand stitch it within your embroidered project. And I would love to see you Finish the edges on your embroidery project with the techniques that we use in this class. When you're all done, you're going Upload a picture of your project to the class gallery. And I would love to see exactly what you create. So don't forget to upload it to the project gallery. So the next lesson we're going to talk all about fabric and our stitching surface and what we're going to use for our project. So if you're ready to talk about our base, meet me in the next lesson. 4. Fabric Selection: So we need a surface to stitch on. This is where fabric comes in handy. In this lesson, we're gonna be talking about fabric options that red colors, and ways that you can use Fabric throughout your hand embroidery project. Personally, when I'm working on a hand embroidery project, I'd like to use quilting cotton probably primarily because it's what I have on hand. I'm a quilter. I have a lot of quilting cotton. I use a Sewing through it. It is my favorite, but you can also use other loosely woven fabrics, like linen or muslin on your project. Don't go crazy buying something super fancy, especially for your first project. Use what you have on hand, use what's available to you. The key is to try to avoid fabrics that are super tightly woven. He's gonna be a little bit trickier to Sew through for your first project. If you're a little bit more of an experienced stitcher and you know how it's going to feel to stitch through thicker fabric by all means go on and go for it. Some people stitch even through denim so it can totally be done. Just make sure that you're going to find a fabric that's going to work for your project that makes you feel comfortable. If you're not sure where to start, I'm going to recommend a quilting cotton, muslin or linen fabric to get started when you're choosing your fabric, you're also going to want to consider your base colors. So this is going to set the stage for your entire project. This piece of fabric is going to be the foundation, is going to be the background colors. So anyway, you're not stitching. It is going to be this color. So keep that in mind whether you choosing a light color, a dark color, a bright color, wherever you're not stitching, this color is probably going to show up. So keep that in mind as you're considering which color you want to use for your project. You might also want to choose a second piece of fabric to use with your project. This can come in handy in two ways. One of the first ways that comes in handy is, remember earlier I mentioned that we can cover our stitches. Well, you can use it at the end of your project. You can load it behind your fabric base in order to mask or cover the stitches or the message you made on the back. The other way you can use it is right from the start. You can place it directly behind your main base piece of fabric. And this will help keep your project a little bit more stable. Pretty soon we're going to talk about stabilization, embroidery hoops. And sometimes as we're working in the fabric just gets loose, even if we've tightened down our Hoop. Sometimes it just gets a little bit loose depending on what type of embroidery hoop we are using. So one way to try to tackle this issue is to actually load two pieces of fabric rather than just one. Keep in mind if your stitching through two pieces of fabric, it will be a little bit of extra thickness. So you might have to work a little bit harder or get a little bit of a sharper needle in order to work through this. Usually I work with just one piece of fabric. That's just my style. And I'm gonna be using a second piece later on to cover everything up. So that's just how I go. And I tightened down my embroidery hoop like with a screwdriver. I keep them super tight, so that's just my style. But many embroidery artists use that second piece of fabric, not only for stabilization, but also because it's going to mask any Stitches. Sometimes our base piece of fabric is a little bit thin or it's a little bit light. And you can actually see the stitches are shadows of Stitches behind that pizza fabric. If you have a second piece of fabric, it helps with the light diffusion. Basically not as much light is going to get through that Fabric. So you're not going to see as much of the MSCI back as you would if you're only using a single piece of fabric, if you do opt to use the second piece of fabric, it doesn't have to be anything particularly fancy. Generally I use just a piece of Muslims, something simple, neutral color. It's not really going to be showing anyway. It's gonna be sitting behind the main base piece of your fabric. So don't buy anything super expensive. Don't use anything super fancy. Do keep in mind that if you are using a background color, I like using a lighter color because if I'm using a light base and I use a dark extra piece of fabric, it's going to show right through that light base. So I tend to use just a neutral or natural colored Muslim, white or cream colored. Those tend to work best for me. But again, do what works best for you and what you have available. This is also important. I run into this all the time is a quilter. Please wash your Fabric ahead of time. If for any reason your project needs to be washed, generally I recommend hand washing, but if it ever needs to be exposed to water, it is generally always a good idea to pre wash your fabric. So you're not worried about shrinkage or the color running. Now if your project allows, you're gonna go ahead and cut your main base piece of fabric, an inch or two outside of the size of your embroidered hoop. Again, if I have a three inch hoop that I'm using for my project, I'm going to have a five inch piece of fabric. And if you're using an extra piece of fabric to either mask stitches or it for extra support. Gone ahead and make that the same size as your base piece of fabric. I generally still work with a square piece of fabric because it's easiest to cut. I don't cut circles very frequently. You don't want to cut it the exact size of your embroidered hoop because you need a little bit of extra fabric around the edges in order to keep it taught, if you need to move your hoop at all to extend the design, you just need that little extra bit of Fabric. There's no need to round the edges yet we can always do this at the end. I personally like having the extra space, the extra wiggle room. The only thing that you need to worry about if you leave the corners on the square as you're loading it into your hoop is sometimes as your stitching they can flop down. And if they flopped down, they might get caught in your stitching. If you don't realize this, then you might have to go out and pull out a few stitches and rework the fabric a little bit and rework your project a little bit. And that can be frustrating. So just be mindful that if you leave the corners on to be aware of where they are and make sure they don't flop under your work and you're not selling them into your project. Awesome. So now we've covered Fabric. We've talked a little bit about your fabric base. We touched on this briefly, but in the next lesson we're gonna start talking about your embroidery hoop and stabilization. So if you're ready to talk about how to stabilize your project and why we need to use an embroidery hoop and let's chat about it in the next lesson. 5. Embroidery Hoop Basics: In this lesson, we're gonna talk about one of the most important aspects of hand embroidery and that is stabilization for most hand embroidery projects, traditional hand embroidery projects, you're going to be using an embroidery hoop. Embroidery hoops are important because they prevent your fabric from buckling, puckering, and tucking as you're adding thread or floss or string. When we add heavy thread work to a piece of fabric, it can lose some of its integrity. It's going to start buckling under the weight of that thread, Floss string, whatever it is we're using to carry out heavy Stitch work. So in order to not let our fabric buckle, we're going to be using some stabilizer, or in most cases and embroidery hoop. And in this project, it's no exception. We're going to be using an embroidery hoop. So as you're choosing your hoop, There's lots of different groups out there. They're made out of different materials. The one that I'm going to be using is made out of bamboo, has a metal screw with the top that is used to tighten down the hoop. So let's take a look at embroidery hoops and we can get an idea of how it works. Basically, an embroidery hoop has two rings and a screw. And what you're gonna wanna do when you go to load your embroidery hoop, you're basically gonna make a sandwich. Your fabric is gonna be secured and pulled taut in the middle of this hoop. So you're going to loosen up the screws so that you can pull the rings apart. The small loop is gonna be the base, lay it flat on your table. Then you're going to center your design in the middle of your hoop. This means you need to choose a hoop that is going to be large enough to accommodate whatever pattern or design you're going to choose. Or if you're working from a set, from a set size, if you know you want to work with a three-inch hoop in order to make a certain project, then you gotta make sure that your design is gonna be able to fit nicely in the middle with a little space around the edge. You don't want your design going right to the edge of the border if you can help it, because then you're gonna have to move your hoop as you work through the project. And that can be tricky. So unless you've got a huge project where you're gonna have to move your, I recommend just sizing up your hoop, making sure that you've got hoop that's big enough to accommodate your project. Okay, So back to our embroidery hoop sandwich. You've got the little ring, set it flat on your table or at flat on a surface. You're going to center your piece of fabric. Next you're going to take the larger ring and you're going to place it down over the top of that. It's all secured in there. Now you're gonna want to try to keep everything centered. This might take a couple little tries, make sure it's all kind of staying nice and taut. You don't want any waves. Keep tightening it slowly, slowly. If you need to secure it with a screwdriver gone ahead, you can use a screwdriver with most embroidery hoops as you want it nice and tighten the hoop so it doesn't start puckering as you're working. Then you want to tap the center of the hoop. That's how you know, it's going to be taught enough. If you want to do two layers of fabric, then you're gonna do both. In that case, you would do your supportive layer on the bottom and then your main base piece of fabric, the one that you want everyone to see. That one's gonna go on top, place the larger ring over both pieces of fabric and tighten it down. In the case of our projects, I want to make a family Momento, but again, work on whatever works best for you. So if you wanna do a larger project, that's totally okay. I'm gonna be using a little four-inch hoop because I want to use it either for the, for holiday ornaments, decorations, Gifts, gift tags. Hey y'all. This can be a FUN little gift tag, kinda cute little extra gift. Keep that in mind what size you're going to want your project to be. Because the hoop is gonna be important in dictating how much working space you're going to have for your project. And in the next lesson we'll start talking about our design and our templates into how we're going to figure out what we're going to be stitching. So if you're ready to decide what you want to stitch and how to create a template that you can use for Stitching. Gone ahead and meet me in the next lesson. 6. Design Embroidery Template: So let's take a second to talk about embroidery patterns. There are a ton of embroidery designs and patterns out there. Some are free, some are paid. And everything in between the scope of our project, I'm going to recommend keeping it simple to get started. So instead of going out and buying a huge pattern and learning ten different stitches, trying to figure out how the pattern works and what the different keys mean, I'm going to show you how to create just a simple pattern that we can use to stitch on. To keep this project simple, I'm going to recommend you choose a name, word, or place. We're going to write or type those words to create a guide for us to stitch on. You can opt to write by hand or you can use any software that comes with fonts. You can simply size the font or your handwriting to fit within your hoop. Do a test print or paper test to make sure it'll fit within your embroidery hoop. It's that simple. If you want to see how I made my regional design, I'll be showing you exactly how I created my template and procreate an Adobe Photoshop throughout this lesson. But don't feel like you need to use these programs. A handwritten design will work just as well. So before I show you how to create your design template and procreate and an Adobe Photoshop, let's talk about font selection because this is going to be important. And as we are creating the design for our stitching project, we are going to choose a simple font. And I'm going to recommend that you choose either a simple printed font or a simple script font. Nothing with a lot of seraphs, nothing that's too ornate. Just keep it simple. When I'm choosing fonts, I like to look for fonts that are thinner. If you want to choose a thicker or bolder font, you might have to do more than one row of stitching. So in this class we're going to learn a simple line stitch. It makes it nice and simple. I can just do a single row of stitching and just follow the line. It's not going to be enough to fill in a broader space, but you can place that line, stitch side by side to fill in a space. Basically, you can do multiple rows of stitching if you want to fill in a broader area. Keep that in mind if you do want to choose a thicker font or a font that varies in a line width, that you can do more than one row of line stitching in order to fill it in. If you're working on a commercial project, make sure that you have a commercial license to use that font. So either an open source or open type font, or that you have a commercial license to be able to sell your work. So keep that in mind if you're using a font, which font you're choosing and whether you have the clearance to be able to use it for your work. But if you're just working on a personal project, a gift to a family member, or something you're going to hang in your home, then you should be good to go with whichever font you want to choose. When you're designing your template or choosing your font, you want clean lines, especially if you're working on a small project. Here I'm going to be working on a three inch or a four inch embroidery hoop. There's not a lot of room to work, which means there's not a lot of room for very, very, very fine lines and heavy detail work. If I'm working on a big project, say a larger scale quilt, I might have a little bit more room for intricate shading. Everything's going to be scaled up a bit. Just keep in mind the scope of your project, but you generally want to keep just nice, simple, clean lines are where we want to be. The next thing you're going to want to keep in mind is the size. Remember earlier we were talking about our embroidery hoop, and the design needs to fit within that embroidery hoop. So make sure that whatever font you choose, it's going to be scaled so that it fits within that hoop. You don't want it so small that there's no room for you to actually make any stitches. But you don't want it so big that it's not going to fit within the hoop. And remember, when you're working on an embroidery hoop, you want to leave just a little bit of extra edge around the rim of your project. Because the closer you get to that embroidery hoop as you're stitching, the harder it is to stitch. So you kind of want to leave a little bit of a gap between the edge of the hoop and where you're actually going to be stitching your project. Now I'll walk you through the process. I used to create my embroidery hoop design using Procreate and Photoshop. The first thing we need to do is decide what we'd like to stitch. The stitch I'm going to show you will be ideal for line work or simple lettering. You can choose to do something similar or make it totally your own. Family names, funny phrases, or the outline of a pet could all be good options here if you're thinking about what to choose for your design. For my project, I decided to do an outline of my home region, New York State, with the word home in the center, To get the outline of my region, I simply traced it from a map. Using procreate. I started by opening Google Maps and searching for my area, New York State. I used the snipping tool to extract the area I wanted to use for my design. You could also take a screenshot of the map or print to PDF. To get a copy of the map, I save the photo to my desktop or you can choose a folder that's easy for you to find. Then I need to get this photo into procreate. So I'm going to drop the photo into Google Drive so that I can access it on my ipad and procreate. That way I can trace an outline for my design. I tend to use Procreate for tracing and Photo Shopper Illustrator to finalize my designs. So I'm going to walk you through my general process. But keep in mind that this isn't a procreate class. So be sure to choose a program that you feel comfortable with. If you prefer not to use any program, that's totally cool too. You can simply trace the image by hand to get an outline. If you are going to use some software, I'm going to show you how I open and trace my photo in procreate. So I'm going to go ahead and open my map photo and procreate. I made a copy of that photo and I'm pulling it onto an 8.5 by 11 inch document. So I wanted to use an 8.2 by 11 inch document because that's a standard print size for my computer and my printer. So you're going to open a new layer in your workspace. Choose a color that's going to contrast with the map that you are going to be tracing on here. I chose am on a line brush because it has a nice smooth texture for drawing. You can adjust the width of your brush. I chose something in the mid to narrow range, nothing too wide, because later we're going to use this as an outline for our stitches, so we don't want it to be too bulky. Next, you're going to outline whichever object you want to stitch for your project. In this case, I'm outlining the region on the map that is home to me, New York State. You can use this technique for tracing a map of your own, a pet, a portrait, outline, a flower. Just remember to keep it simple. If you're new to stitching whichever object, person, place, or thing you want to stitch, you're going to go ahead and trace an outline. Now I want to add a little bit of text to my project. And you can add text and procreate by selecting ad text from the ad drop down menu. Type the word name or phrase you've chosen for your project. In this case, I've selected home in the layers panel. You can select your text layer, tap the layer icon, and choose edit text to modify your phrase. You can choose nu font. You can change the size of your font. And you can use the selection tool to move your text and resize it as well. You can also use the drawing guide grid to help you scale your project. Under the Actions menu, turn on the Drawing Guide and select Edit Drawing Guide. Now change the grid size and units to coordinate with the size of your document. I chose an eight, a two by 11 inch paper size, so I'm going to tap the numeric grid size to make adjustments. In this case, I'm choosing inches for my units, and I want the grid to be in 1 " increments. Now we're going to draw a circle to represent the width of the embroidery hoop that we're going to use. I know that I want to use a four inch embroidery hoop for this project. I'm moving the circle so the top is aligned with a grid line, and the left side of my circle is aligned with a grid line. Now I'm scaling down from the bottom right hand corner until my circle is four grid lengths or 4 " wide. This represents the space that I'll have for stitching within my embroidery hoop. Next, I'm going to duplicate my New York State drawing outline and hide it from view just in case I need the original later on in the project. Now I'm going to resize the other New York State outline to fit inside my circle or hoop guide. Please note that I left the room around the edge so that the outline of my region isn't right at the edge of the circle. Rather, I left a little bit of space. Now it's time to resize your text. Once you're happy with the sizing, make sure your project is named, then you can export it as a Jpeg or a PNG file if you'd like to make any final adjustments in Illustrator or Photoshop. In this case, I'm going to be saving as a Photoshop file because I like to do all of my final edits in either Illustrator or Photoshop. Here I saved to Google Drive so I could open the document in Photoshop on my desktop computer. Now I'm opening my procreate design in Adobe Photoshop. You can add guidelines if you want to confirm the scale or size of your project. You can also add text directly in Photoshop. Personally, I like this amatic font. It has simple slender lines and it has a nice cozy vibe, which is ideal for my home themed project. You can adjust the font size by clicking the corner and using a fixed ratio transformation. Basically, you're just going to click and move that corner around. Try not to free transform a font, or it'll become warped. And don't forget to remove the circle guide before exporting your design as a PNG or JP. Once you've exported your design template, it's time for a test print. It's important to do a test print to make sure the size and rendering is exactly how you want it before we trace it onto our fabric base. If all looks right and you're ready to trace, we'll cover this in the next lesson. If your design needs some work, now is the time to make adjustments. So to recap, you're going to choose the theme for your project. You're going to trace or type your design elements onto a document or onto a piece of paper. You're going to arrange these elements into one design template that you're going to use to stitch your project. You're going to test print and test your design for size accuracy to make sure that it fits in your hoop. And then you're going to make any adjustments as necessary. So once you're happy with the scale, the size, and the font that you've chosen, go ahead and make sure you've got a printed copy, because we need to transfer this pattern onto our. In the next lesson, I'm going to go through exactly how to take this piece of paper, whether we've drawn it or printed it, and how we're going to trace that design onto our main piece of fabric so that we can have guidelines for where we're going to stitch our project. So if you're ready to see how that process works, go on ahead and meet me in the next lesson. 7. Tracing Guide on Fabric: Now that you've chosen your design, we need to transfer this design onto our piece of fabric so that we know where and what to stitch. So we need to actually physically trace this design onto our piece of fabric. And there are few key tools that we can use to get the job done. The first tool that you can use is pretty simple. It's a pencil. So you can use a pencil to trace your pattern onto your piece of fabric. It can be a little bit difficult to remove the lines though, but it's a little bit easier to remove the lines and say using ink, which is another option. You can use a pen, a fabric marker, or say infeasible ink as well. Now these tend to be pretty permanent. So if you're going to be using this technique, make sure that your stitching is gonna be thick enough or that the lines are gonna be thin enough that you're not going to see those guidelines after you're all done stitching. Now another option, and I use this with a lot of my embroidery or projects is water soluble stabilizer. I love water-soluble stabilizer. Basically it works right with my printer. So instead of printing on a regular piece of paper and tracing my project with a window or lightbox. I can print directly on the water-soluble paper. And then I can stick it to my project. And you're so right through it and when you're all done, it washes away in water. I love this stuff. It is fantastic. Now, this is why I mentioned earlier that you wanna make sure that your fabric and your floss Art color fast and that nothing's going to run and nothing is going to shrink. Everything is pre washed. For today's project, I'm going to use a size three Pigma Micron pen. It's really 0.35 mm. But what's awesome about this pen is that it is waterproof and fade proof, which is gonna be great for our project because the lines aren't going to wash away in water. I'm going to make sure that my lines are going to be thin enough and accurate enough as I'm tracing that they're not going to show up once I'm all done stitching, I'm going to make sure that all of my stitching is going to cover up all my lines because this pen isn't going to wash away afterwards. So there's a few ways that we can trace this design. Ultimately, we're going to be tracing directly on the piece of fabric. Once your fabric is in the hoop, it's elevated, it's no longer on a table. And it can be kinda tough to draw on top of that elevated piece of fabric. That's not too much FUN. And if you take the fabric out of hoop, then how do you know if your project is centered and it's right where you want to be. So little handy trick to get by both of those things is you're actually going to reverse load your hoop for the tracing portion of the project. So let's lay it out. If your hoop is already put together, you're going to quick unscrew it and we're going to reassemble it real quick. You're going to take the bigger hoop, you're gonna place it on the table or on your working surface. Then you're gonna put down your piece of fabric and then you're going to tuck the smaller hoop in the middle. This is going to be the middle of where you're going to trace your pattern. This helps to make sure that you are a not too close to the edge when you're tracing your design, be that you have a flat surface that you can trace on and see that everything is centered so that when you're ready to work on your project, everything is exactly where you want it to be. So you're going to trace right in the center of the little ring that we've rearranged and reassembled temporarily while we trace our project, to trace your design tape or secure your printed template to a window or lightbox. Place your reversed hoop over the template, make sure the printed side of the fabric is face up. So you'll be drawing on the good side of the Fabric where ultimately you'll be Stitching. Be sure to send her the design within the hoop. And once you're happy with the designs placement carefully start tracing your design onto the piece of fabric. And when you're all done, you're gonna have a beautiful template that we can stitch directly on. Now, before we get to the stitching part, makes sure that you rearrange your hoop, which means you're going to have An unscrew your hoop one more time. You're going to place the small ring on the table, your pieces fabric on top, and then your big ring. Tighten it down, make it nice and taut. And your design should be right in the center, ready for stitching. Once you're done all reloading your hoop, we could started. So if you're ready to start working on your project, we're going to start off with a Basics. And in the next lesson, we're going to talk about six Strand Embroidery Floss. If you're ready to hear all about the colorful world of Embroidery Floss. Meet me in the next lesson. 8. 6 Strand Embroidery Floss: Do you love embroidery floss? One of my favorite tools to use for embroidery is embroidery floss. Now, there are lots of tools that you can use to embroider. You can use ribbon, you can use pearl cotton. They're also metallics and different types of fun, fancy threads. But the most common one that you are going to encounter is six strand embroidery floss. Not only does it come in a ton of colors, but it is made up of six strands. So while it looks like one thick strand of floss, it's actually made up of six smaller strands. What's fantastic about this is you can actually take this one thick piece of strand and divide it into thinner strands. You can use one strand for your project, 2345 or all six. It's totally up to you. And what this does for your project is it allows you to decide which thickness you want to be stitching at. So if you have a thinner line, you're probably going to want to use fewer strands. If you have a thicker line or a bigger space to fill, you might want to consider using more strands. So how do we divide up all of these strands? The first thing we need to do is cut a length of floss. Now, as you're using your embroidery floss, keep in mind that you don't want to use a strand that's too, too long. It's far more likely to get tangled or knotted and slow down your project. Sometimes I like to try to push the limits on this, and I usually wind up regretting it, because I've got to stop and take out a knot somewhere in my project because the floss got tangled. You're going to want to cut a piece that's about 18, more than 20 " long. This should be a good size for your project. And then you're going to go ahead and decide how many strands you want to use. Once you're ready to divide out your strand, hold onto that piece of DMC floss. You're going to tap the end of the floss so that each of those six strands appears to be loose. So you're going to hold the main strand of floss in one hand. And you're going to gently pull exactly one strand out at a time. And you're going to pull this strand straight up and away from the other strands. Once it's all the way out, you're going to go on the head and re, straighten those other five strands, and you're going to set the single strand off to the side. You're going to repeat this for as many strands as you want to use in your project. Traditionally, most embroidery artists use two to three strands. Sometimes I like to use all six if I'm trying to fill a space relatively quickly. The more strands, the thicker the line, the fewer strands, the thinner the line. Decide what's going to work best for you and your project. The other thing you want to keep in mind is you're choosing your floss is to make sure that it is color fast, meaning that it's not going to run on your project. This is especially important if you're working on any kind of garment or a project that might get wet or might get exposed to water. I like to use DMC floss. I have not had an issue yet with the color or the de running. It is supposed to be colorfast. If in doubt, if you don't have DMC or if you want to use a different type of floss, that's totally okay. What I'm going to recommend is just testing it out. Take a little bit of that floss. Use a little bit of it on your project or on a piece of fabric and just run it under a little bit of water to see if it stains to see if the color runs that way. You know that your project is going to be safe before you get working. And again, this is important if you're going to be working on any type of project that's going to be exposed to water. So with our little hoop projects, it really shouldn't be exposed to water unless you're using a water soluble template. If for whatever reason you think that this project is going to need to be washed in the future, if you're going to wind up incorporating it into a pillow or a coaster or something along those lines, then just make sure that your floss is going to not run. The color is not going to run so that you're good to go for your project. What I love about DMC Floss is not only are they color fast, but also they have index numbers. Which means if I need to color match, I will be able to do it. So if there's a certain color that I'm looking for or certain color that I'm using for my project, I will note its index number, which is on the little paper fold that is holding the floss together. When you first buy the skin of floss, make sure that you note down your index numbers if you think you're going to want to use a color again and maybe just note them down anyway, just in case it really doesn't hurt. So that you can be sure that when you go back to the store, if you need to restock or get more floss, you're going to get the exact same color. Because there are a ton of colors to choose from. And it's really easy to mix them up if they're just a shade off of each other. Now that we've talked all about floss, we're going to go ahead and move into the next lesson. We're going to start talking about how to thread a needle, the anatomy of a needle, and one of my favorite tools, a needle threader. So if you're ready to get started, go on ahead and meet me in the next lesson. 9. Threading a Sewing Needle: Let's talk about sewing needles. There are a lot of different types of Sewing Needle is out there. Some sewing needles are made just for machines, but are also a whole range of hand sewing needles. Let's start by talking about the anatomy of a Sewing Needle. There are a few key parts to recognize. First, we have the eye of the needle. The I is a hole at one end of the needle and holds the thread or string as we stitch. Next we have the main shaft of the needle. One end is pointing. That end goes through the fabric as we. So the other end is home to the eye and it's usually a bit more blunt. However, it can still poke you if you're not careful, it's best to hold the needle along the shaft and when possible, you can even brace the floss around the eye. This will help keep your needle from coming unthreaded. One of the cool things about embroidery needles is they have a much larger eye. They usually have a larger eye than most own needles because we use thicker string when we're going to be doing embroidery work. Now there are pros and cons too large in the embroidery needle because it is a larger eye than the rest of the needle. Sometimes it can be tougher to move these needles through thicker, denser fabric. So if you have a very tightly woven piece of fabric, it could be a little bit trickier to use this needle. I still stick with the embroidery needles. I think I must have fingers of great force. I can usually get it through what fabric I want to get through. But if you want to try out a thinner needle, I say totally go for it. The key to keep in mind is that the eye of the needle needs to be large enough to accommodate whatever string or Floss you're going to be using. So make sure that you'll still be able to get the string or floss through the eye of the needle. I'm going to recommend starting out with a hand embroidery needle. You can always move on from there. Speaking of threading a needle, Let's talk about one of my favorite tools, a needle thread. Or basically the idea is we want to get that thread through the eyes so that we can go ahead and move our needle and thread in one motion through our Fabric. Because the large eye, you might be able to thread this I with no problem at all. But sometimes when you're working with multiple strands of thread, well, each of those strands can have a mind of their own, sometimes trying to work multiple strands through it once can be a little bit challenging. So let's talk about threading are needle. The first thing you're gonna wanna do is make sure the end of your floss is nice. And even if you need to give it a clean cut, gone ahead and give it a clean cut, basically the needle thread or is going to have a base and it's going to have a metal ring, or it might look like a diamond shape. That little metal ring is actually going to be an I extend her. So what you're gonna wanna do is you're going to place that little metal ring through the eye of your needle. Now, you basically have a much bigger target for your thread to go through. Instead of trying to place your threat or floss through the eye of the Needle. You're actually going to place it through the metal wire and your needle thread. Or the next thing you're gonna wanna do is you're going to pull the base of your needle thread or back through the needle so that the little metal wires coming back through the eye and it's bringing the string or the floss, right with it. Now sometimes this can be tricky if you're using five or six Strand severe floss, if it feels like it's tough, you might not be able to get the threat or back through. You either a have too small of an eye on your needle or be just try moving the needle thread or closer to the center of the eye. Sometimes if you're pulling the needle thread or through too close to the top or too close to the bottom of the eye. It's a little bit narrower and they can get stuck. So you're just gonna kinda want to work your way down so that you're pulling your needle thread or through the center of the eye where you can have just a little bit more space, release the needle thread or you should have a shorter tail and a longer strand. And that's going to give you a nice threaded needle. In. The last thing I'm going to recommend is working with a knot at the end of your strand. Now if you're looking at your Floss strand and your needle as it's threaded, there should be a shorter tail that's going to remain loose. You don't want to not that piece. And then you're gonna have a longer strand. I am going to recommend tying a little knot at the end of the strand. If you're a beginner Stitcher, you can just try a nice simple not going to make a little loop. Put the end of the floss through the end of the loop and pull. Now you want to make sure that not as thick enough that it's not going to come through the fabric. So you might need to tie a double naught or a triple not, but you're gonna go ahead and just tie little knob at the end. Now some experienced embroidery errors do not tie knots and that's totally okay. They've learned ways that they can hold our anchor, their Floss, they're going, but if you're just getting started, going to be one less thing that you have to think about when you start Sewing. If you're trying to figure out your new embroidery stitch and you're worried that your floss is going to pull through the fabric. It's a lot for your hands to do in addition to holding onto your embroidery hoop and making sure, you know, drop your needle. So to relieve some of that pressure when you're first getting started, go on ahead and tie a little knot at the end of one strands that when you pull through the fabric, the floss is going to stop. You don't have to worry about pulling all the way through and you having to start over from the beginning again. Now, if you're worried about having a messy back and you're worried that all the knots are going to show, I've got a technique that's going to cover them all up so don't stress, we're going to cover a little bit later in the next few lessons. So don't worry, by the end of the project, I'm going to make sure that the back is covered. So whatever messy stitches we make, we're not going to worry about it. We're just going to start stitching and we're going to use to the practice. Later on as you get more experienced, if you want to try to tidy things up a bit, that is totally okay. That is totally cool. So now that we've talked about our Needle, how to threat or Needle, how to anchor our Floss. And of course my favorite tool, the needle thread or we're gonna talk about the split stitch. The split stitch is a great stitch. It's really versatile. It's just a good one to start with. It's a nice simple stitch. In the next lesson, I'm going to show you the split stitch. If you're ready to get stitching and you're ready to get started going ahead. And let's talk about the split stitch in the next lesson. 10. Split Stitch: Hey, so ready to start stitching? So we got to learn our first embroidery stitch. So in this lesson we're going to talk about the split stitch. Traditionally it is used as a line stitch, which means it's great for lines and curves outlining things. First, I'm gonna go ahead and show you how the stitch works. And then I'm gonna show you how you can apply it to your project. This is what the split stitch looks like. Let's break it down step-by-step. Start by bringing your needle up from the backside of the project to the top of your project. Next, take one stitch by bringing your needle back down a quarter inch or so away from where you brought the needle up. You now have one straight stitch. Now you're going to bring your needle back up through the second half of that stitch, thus splitting it, giving you a split stitch. You are literally bringing you needle up through the floss in that stitch. Now let's continue and do it again. Bring your needle back down one stitch length away, about a quarter of an inch or so. Then bring your needle back up through that stitch. And repeat it again. Take one Stitch, split the Stitch. Take one stitch, split the Stitch. Take one stitch, split the stitch. Try to find a good rhythm. It might take a few stitches to get into a flow. Now let's check out this stitch in action to the place to start your project. I usually start at the end of a line. Now we're going to start stitching. You're going to bring your needle up and we're gonna do the same process that we just did in the practice stitching. We're going to take a stitch, then split that stitch. We're going to take stitch and then we're going to split that stitch. When you're working on lettering, be mindful of your stitching route. You might need to take travel stitches to move to a different part of the letter you're working on. For example, with this H, I'm stitching all the way down the first stem. Then once I'm at the bottom of the stem, I'll end by searching through the backside of the fabric at the base of that stem. Then I'll come back up the center of the H at the crossing bars that I can continue stitching. This stitch that extends from the base of the stem to the middle of the bar on the back of my project is called the travel stitch. You can use travels to just move around your project. Personally. In this project, I use them within the same letter, but I tied off my floss between the letters and started fresh with a new stitching line. More on nodding and tying off your floss. In the next lesson, you should also be mindful of letters that have curves. In traditional embroidery, It's common to try to make all of your stitches as close as possible to the same size or the same length. But when your stitching a curve, sometimes need to make your stitches a little bit smaller in order to keep the curve looking smooth. Because we're creating a curve using little lines, aka our stitches. Smaller stitches are going to appear smoother, whereas larger stitches will come out looking less curvy and more angular. If it's important to you to have even Stitches throughout your project, you might want to figure out what size stitches you'll need to make smooth curves, then you can adapt the rest of your stitches to match the size that you use in those curves. Now you're going to continue stitching your project. You can change floss colors if you'd like, or you can keep all the same color. If you want to change floss colors, you'll have to tie off your floss and anchoring your stitches on the back of the project. But don't worry, We'll review that in the next lesson. So go on ahead and keep on stitching. One last note. If you chose a wider font, if you stack the stitch side-to-side, you can also use it to fill in your spaces. So feel free if you want to get creative, you can use this stitch to fill in larger areas within your project. Also. Now that we've started stitching, now that we know the split stitch, let's talk about what's gonna happen if we run low on floss or if you're ready to wrap up our project, how we're going to anchor our project. I'll see you in the next lesson. If you're ready to learn how to tie off your six strand floss 11. Knots and Anchoring Stitches: Welcome back. In this lesson we're going to talk about how to stop stitching. So whether you want to move to a different section, you need to pause your work or if you're running on a thread, let's talk about what we need to do to make sure that our Stitches don't unravel and to make sure that we secure our project properly. To do this, make sure that you still have a few inches of your six strand floss or your string available. You don't want to completely run out of Floss if you can help it because you need a way to make a knot with the tail end of that Floss. Leave enough string that will be able to tie a knot on the back of the project. Anytime there's something that we don't want to be seen, it needs to be on the back of the project. And anchor knots are no different. We don't want those to be on the front of the project, so we're going to make sure that those are on the back. So we're everywhere were there project, make sure you've a couple inches of string and then bring your needle down to the backside of the project. You're gonna flip the hoop over and you're going to tie a knot. You can do this in one of two ways. You can either tie a loop with the main strand of your Floss, pull the end of the floss through. I usually like to work that loop all the way down to the base of the fabric. I'll secure the little twisted part of the loop with either my finger or my fingernail. And then I'll pull the main strand not rests right at the base of the Fabric. If this is proving a little bit tricky and you can't quite get the not to lie right on the base of the fabric. The other option is to use your needle to pull your strand floss through and nearby stitch to make a small loop. Then you can loop, that's gonna be your new loop. So then you're going to loop or right through those two strands and you're going to tie a knot that way. Now makes sure that if it feels like a loose not tie a double knot, make sure that those strands don't come unthreatening. Now if you're all done stitching, congratulations. If you need more floss or if you want to change colors, just simply read thread your needle the way that we did at the start of the project, tie a little knot at the end of your main strand and go on ahead and keep stitching your project pick up right where you left off. In order to pick up where you left off, make sure that you're starting on the underside of your project, that your new, not on the new strand is gonna be seen. And then go on ahead. Bring your needle right back up to the top of the project and keep on stitching. Also. Now that we've started stitching, now that we know the split stitch, and now that we know how to anchor our project as we're working, let's cover some key hand embroidery tips that might come in handy as you get going. I'll see you in the next lesson. 12. Stitching Tips: In this lesson, we're going to cover a few key tips that are gonna help your project runs smoothly. I like working with a Stitching surface in front of me. Sometimes it's handy to have a number of your tools near you, whether it be a small pair of scissors, a pin cushion. Sometimes you need to just set your project down for a second so can help to have a table near you. Now the next thing that you want to think about is if you don't have an embroidery hoop holder, you're going to have to hold onto your project. You want your project to be primarily facing you. The main visible part, you want that Stitching surface to stay upright every known then you're gonna have to flip it over if you need to tie a knot or if something got caught or get snagged on the backend, you need to inspect it, see what's going on. And I know it's gonna be tempting when you're first starting to stitch to flip it over to see what your needle needs to go. But the truth is you're templates on the front. So you need to be looking at the front to see where your needle is going to come up because we can't see on the front and the back of the same time, there's a little trick that you can use to know your needle is gonna be, you can gently run your needle along the back of your hoop and this will show you, you'll see the kind of the indentation and we're needle is moving at the top of the hoop. So this will help show you exactly where your needle is going to come up without you having to flip back and forth, which is just going to slow down your project. As you get more practice, you're going to realize where your needle is in relation to your fabric and in relation to your hoop. The next thing you want to keep in mind is your stitching tension. So this means how tight you're pulling that thread, how tight you're pulling your stitches. You want your stitches to be taught, but not so tight that they're pulling at the fabric. This is especially important to keep in mind if you're working on a stretchy surface now most quilting cottons, linens, Muslims aren't going to be stretchy. But if there's ever a time when you're working on say, a knit hat or a sweatshirt or something that might be a little bit stretch here. Then you're gonna want to keep in mind not to pull your stitches too tight because it will start to work your fabric. Now as you're working, sometimes the needle comes unthreaded because you're gonna be pulling the needle through the fabric. And sometimes we forget that, well, there's an end. Strand is only so long and we can over pull the needle and strand can become unthreaded. So to prevent this, I'm going to recommend that you pinch your needle at the eye. This does two things for you. If you pinch your threaded needle at the I just very gently, that's where you're gonna be like bracing your Needle. This is going to help remind you that your strand is only so long and you're not likely going to overwork your hand to the point where it's coming unthreaded. So it should help. You have to read thread your needle fewer times. And the other thing it'll help with is the backside of the Needle and know it looks blunt, but it can still poke you if you're working through a very tough fabric and you're trying to push that needle through. Sometimes it will poke into your hands, especially if you don't have a symbol or a finger guard, pinching over the eye is going to help protect the backside of your fingers so you're not pushing that needle and you never want to push a needle and you want to work it through gently with your fingers. So keep that in mind as we move forward with our stitching project. The next thing you want to keep in mind is travel Stitching. Sometimes in your project you want to work on one section and then you kinda wanna skip ahead to the next section. Maybe you're just done in one space and now you gotta go fill in another object and another space. So there are a couple options here, depending on how close together those objects are. You can either you can do all of your stitching and then you can just move your needle over to the next step section and start stitching in the next section. That is called a travel stitch. Now, there are pros and cons to these. Travel Stitches can make the back of your project look a little bit messy. And B, remember how we talked about light diffusion. So when the light is shining through your fabric, you'll be able to see some of these travel stitches and sometimes that's a little bit unsightly. Those shadows aren't always FUN to see. If the objects are close together. You're not going to notice much of a travels digits are going to look like you're hopping from one space right next to a neighbor space. It's no big deal. But if you're hopping all the way cross your project, what you're probably going to want to do is cut your thread. Now, don't just cut it because your stitches will start to unravel. First you're gonna wanna anchor your project. You're going to tie a knot when you're ready to stop working on one space, whether that be because you want to take a break, you want to change thread colors. You're done working in that space. Or maybe you're just, you're almost out of Floss, anchor your thread, and then start again in the next section, the next key tip I'm gonna give you might seem obvious, I'm not sure, but just in case I'm going to bring it up because well, we've all been there needle storage. But basically you don't want to lose your embroidery needle because you don't want to find that the hard way. They are pointy and they are sharp and you don't want to accidentally get poked by the needle. So if you're just taking a quick break from your project, you can just pop your Needle probably on the side of the corner of your project and it won't get too lost. But if I'm stopping work for the day, I put my needle in a pin cushion because if I don't and I don't remember that I put the needle in the side of my piece of fabric arts side of my working piece. And I get poked by it. I'm gonna be really sad and you just don't want that to happen. So in an effort not to lose your Needle, not to get poked by your needles, make sure that you have a pinkish in handy. Or sometimes I'll use just a small piece of linen canvas or something along those lines, just somewhere where, you know, your needle is not gonna get lost. It's gonna be easy to find in that it's less likely to poke him. Okay, so now that we've covered some key stitching Tips, once you're all done stitching, it's time to clean up the edges of our projects. So if you're ready to learn how to make our project look neat and tidy, meet me in the next lesson. 13. Finished Edges: We're finishing up our design. This is the exciting part. So now that everything's been all stitch, we need to clean up the edges of our projects so it looks a little bit more finished and refined if you want to cover the back of your project in order to hide any messy stitching or travel stitches are knots. Now is the time. This is what you want to do. You're just going to unscrew your hoop. You're going to remake your sandwich this time with the smallest, the smallest string on the table. Put down your piece of fabric. There's going to be covering the pack of your hoop. You're going to put down your main stitched piece of fabric. And then your larger hoop over the top of all of them. Make sure they're nice and centered. Re, tighten the hoop now with both pieces of fabric sandwiched right in there. And now the backside of your project should be covered so that it looks nice and neat. Now as an added bonus with this piece of fabric, you can sign it, you can date it. You can add a little memory. I like to sign the back of the extra piece of fabric. It's a nice little Momento, a nice keeps sake. So once you have your hoop reloaded, you can go ahead and you can trim around the edge of your hoop. Now you don't want to trim too close to your embroidery hoop, leave a good three-quarters of an inch to a half an inch all the way around the hoop. You can use pinging shares if you don't want your fabric to fray. That is a good option. Or if you just have regular shares available, that'll be okay to. Next, we're gonna do what's called a running stitch. Basically you're going to get a piece of floss or thread or string. You need to make sure that it's long enough that it can go around the whole circumference of your hoop. This is gonna be really important. Make sure you have a string that's long enough. You might want to match the color your base fabric materials. So that's not as easy to see. You're going to tie a little, not at one end. You can leave a little tail if you'd like, because we're gonna be pulling that tail. Once we've stitched all the way around. The not can be hidden underneath. It's announces a little bit easier to access a few, the not is actually on the top side. This is one of the few instances when you might want the on the top side depends on if you wanted to show or not. It's up to you. The ins and outs of running stitch our you're going to have a stitch and then you're going to have a gap. And then you're going to stitch and you're gonna have a gap. In most traditional running stitches. You want those stitches in those gaps to be the same size. This is the back of your projects, so not super stressed if, if the sizes are imperfect or if they're different. In this case, you want those to just to be fairly large. You don't want them to be teeny, teeny tiny. So make sure that they are big enough that they're gonna be fairly easy to pull. Where most stitches we want them secure, we want them smaller. We don't want to be able to pull any tension on them, these stitches. Just for the back of this project, we want to be able to pull them. We want the tension to be a little bit loose. So go ahead and make really big running stitches all the way around your project until you get back to where you started. Once you get back to where you're started, you're going to pull the tail that you started with and what's left to have the strand that you have until all of the fabric is tucked to the back of your project. It's like magic. This is like my favorite part. I love this part. Then you're going to tie those two strands together to secure it so the tail that you started with and the end tail. So make sure it is secured with a knots so it doesn't come undone and so that fabric stays pulled to the back of the project. Now that we've tidied up our Hoop, join me for another lesson. I want to show you how to just take this Hoop in the next level so you can use it as Walmart. You can use it as a decoration or an ornament. We're going to add a string and a bow to this project. So if you're ready to see how that works, I'll show you in the next lesson. 14. Prep For Display: You're almost done. So if you want to hang your embroidery hoop, use it as well, Art, use it as a decoration. This lesson is going to help give your project it's a little bit of extra pizzazz so that it is Display ready. And so that is just a little bit more FUN to hanging around your home or to use as a decoration. So if you want to hang up your embroidery project and add a little extra glam, let's get started. The first thing you're gonna do is cut a piece of string, makes sure that your string is going to be at least double the length that you want to hanging out plus room to tie off a quick not so that you can tie those strings together. So basically whatever length you choose, you're going to pull it through underneath the screw on the embroidery hoop. You're going to tie a quick note at the top. Then what I like to do is I like to twist around that strings that I like to tuck that not just right in the little area underneath the screw. Now this will give you a way to hang your project if you have tax or a hook or somewhere that you can hang your project. The next thing you might wanna do is add a bow. If you're not sure how to make a bow, you can also visit my other Skillshare class all about how to make a handmade bow. This is something I loved to add to my embroidery hoops, I think gives it just a little bit of extra dazzle, which to me as FUN, it makes it a little bit more formal when it's hanging on your walls. If you are familiar with how to make a bow, instead of using a floral wire, I like to use either a Shamil stem or I like to use a twist tie on the back of the both. And I'm going to use for my embroidery projects. So you're going to make a small bow, nothing to chew huge because we don't want to overwhelm your project. You are going to use that she Neil stem or that twist tie and do your wrap and go ahead and secure the twist tie right around the screw hook on the embroidery hoop. So that's going to not only keep the, not in place underneath that little area, but it's also going to hide the unsightly screw that is at the top of the embroidery hoop. So now we have a little bow and a little place to hang our project, and a little loop to hang our project. And it's ready for Display. So if your projects all set, if you have your little loop and you have your little, little bow, or if it is made up just the way that you want it. Go on ahead, meet me for one last lesson. We're going to talk about some care instructions. And so Final Thoughts, You are almost there. I am so excited for you and I cannot wait to see what you create. Meet me in the next lesson just for some final care notes. 15. Care & Final Thoughts: You did it. You got to the end of your project. If you've decided to keep your project as Hoop Art or as a gift that's going to remain in the embroidery hoop. All you'll ever really need is hopefully a little bit of spot cleaning. If you've embroidered a project that's gonna be on clothing or a bag or something that's gonna get more use. I'm going to recommend hand wash and lay your project flat to dry because you want to protect all of your delicate stitching. In general, your embroidery may be able to hold up to refer Washington circumstances, but why risk it? I highly recommend protecting your work. It probably took a little while to work on your project and you don't want all of that Stitching to go to waste. You want to protect your work. So handwashing and air drying is the way to go. But if you've kept your project in the hoop, likely all you're going to need a little bit of dusting once in awhile, maybe a little bit of spot cleaning, but hopefully just a little bit of dusting. The other thing to keep in mind, just to be mindful of where you're displaying your project because of its exposed to a lot of light, it could fade over time, but most importantly, just enjoy your work. Hopefully you place it somewhere that it'll give you a smile. It'll bring up a good memory for you. If you left this class, please. I would love for you to leave a review. It'll help other students find classes that they will love and it'll help me make even better class is for you in the future. Thanks so much for following along and don't forget to upload a picture of your project in the project gallery. I can't wait to see what you create.