Transcripts
1. Christmas embroidery: Hi, my name is Flora and I'm a self-taught embroidery artist. The best time for embroidery is Christmas. It is so much fun to make your own Christmas decorations with embroidery. It's something you can use every year again and again. In this class, we are making a modern version Christmas tree. That will be great as a gift and it will look great in your modern interior. This class is for absolute beginners, and it is a fun little project that you will make in no time.
2. Tracing: First, we're going to trace the pattern. I remember when I start with embroidery that I looked everywhere on how to trace a pattern and I found out that this is my favorite way to do it. When you use your computer, you can resize your pattern really easily, and it works like a lightbox. It's something you have laying around at home. Everybody has a computer or a laptop. It doesn't really matter if it is a computer or laptop, although a laptop is a bit easier because you can bend it around. What you do is you turn your hoop around, so when you put your fabric in the hoop, you're going to turn around, so it's really flat. I like to lay my laptop a bit flat as well so I can bend over it, and I trace the design with my Frixion pen. You can find all the items you need for this video in a PDF file that is attached with this class. In the PDF file, I also show you the Frixion pen that I use for tracing. It is a pen that you can really easily erase with your hairdryer. You just use it and whenever you make a mistake or at the end you want to use it, you just go over it with your hairdryer on the hottest setting and it just magically disappears. I love that pen.
3. Tree: We are going to start with the bigger needle and use the color 500. For the trees, you will use all six strands. All the strands are in the floss, you don't need to remove any thread from that floss. We're going to start at the bottom and make the first stitch. What you do, you're going to go a centimeter above it with your second stitch and bring your needle back in the middle of the previous stitch. We're going to repeat this process following the line you made. We're going to make two parallel lines so the stem has really nice size to it. For the branches, we are going to do the same thing we did before with the same color, but now, we're making one line instead of two. For the pine needles, we are using color 8, 9, 5, and again, we're using all six strands.
4. Plant pot: For the legs of the plant pot, use color 898 with again six strands. You start at the bottom and go to the top in one long stitch. This is what we call a satin stitch. For small areas, I like to use that stitch. But for large areas, it's not my favorite stitch because you have to be very careful to put them next to each other, otherwise, it can get messy really quick. A tip for that is that you draw your lines out. So if you have a larger area that you want to fill, you can just draw the lines out so you make sure that they're really next to each other and that they're going straight. For the top edge of the plant, we use color 3705, and this time we are using two strands instead of six. We are doing this because we can be a bit more precise on the drawing line with our thread, and it's also a waste of your threads if you always use six strands. It becomes expensive very quickly when you always use six strands, and this way you get a more cleaner-looking area. Because we use two needles, I set this in the PDF with all the tools you will need, we are going to use a smaller needle. We are using the one from John James. The reason why we are doing this is because you don't want big holes to show. You only need a tiny hole and it isn't nice if you use a big needle. We're basically going to do the same stitch as we did before. Now we're going on to the last part, and yet again, we're going to just repeat the same process with the same stitch, but now we're using the color 3341.
5. tips and tricks: To make it even more festive, you can add drops of gold paint on it. This is just regular golden paint you can buy anywhere. You can also use a marker. You have these big thick black markers, but you can also have them in gold or silver. You can buy them anywhere. I would love to see in a project section what you guys can do with it, to make it more Christmassy, to make it more festive. I'm all about mixing it up in mix media, so I would love to see your ideas on how to amp up the Christmas vibes. I added a piece of a different video of mine so you can see how you can glue the back of the hoop, so you can frame it. This is a piece of the other video I have, just so you can see how to do it. This is not my strongest part, but this is how I do it. I use textile glue. Again, you can find it in my description. I'm going to put that textile glue on a piece of fabric. First, I'm going to cut out excessive fabric. I can imagine that for people, it's a bit scary. Because it's like, "Oh, God. What if I cut too much off?" You have to cut a lot off because you're going to wrap it double over the hoop. You don't want to see it on the other side, so you will need to cut a lot off. I couldn't find my fabric scissors, the ones that have these wavy like a wave scissors, you guys know what I mean. That looks way better. Couldn't find it, but normally, I do that. Then you get a nice even look. I'm using a piece of fabric that I'm going to throw away, and I'm putting it on that. Because I know myself, I will squeeze too hard, and then it will like [inaudible] all over the place. I'm trying to avoid that. I think it's rather remarkable how I did it just out of the camera shot. But you get the picture, you just put the glue, there you go, on the fabric. Then when I put it on the fabric, I'm now going to put it smeared out on the top of the lead, and I'm going to put it over the fabric. You can also use a paintbrush. Now, you're just going to fold it over.
Floor Giebels, Embroidery Artist
