Transcripts
1. Intro : This class is going to be about hand embroidery. We're going to make this flower. You're going to stitch along with me. Embroidery is a great way to do something without looking at your screen and just completely take your mind of something or relaxed while having a podcast on or listen to some music. It's a great way to relax and impress your friends. It is really easy to learn. I will show you. I'm going over all the things you need, all the supplies you need, and you're going to stitch along with me, and I'm going to show you how easy it is to make this piece. It is with six trends. That means that it's piece that is easy to make, and it's not going to take weeks to complete. Is a fun way to learn about hand embroidery and to make your first or second or third flower. As you can see, I will bring you straight along with me. You will see from up-close how to do to stitches, and you can just follow my hand. In the meantime, I will tell you the tips and tricks and how I do it, and all the steps you need to know to finish this piece.
2. Tools And Tips: This is about the supplies you need. Don't look at my mess. It is stitching chaos. This is the fabric. It's just cotton. This is the pen I'm using. You can order it from DMC. It's a friction pen so you use it and then you just wipe it off. I'm going to show you. Mine is already empty a bit. I just turn around my hoop and I trace to computer. It will not break your computer. It will not happen. I also have a tutorial about tracing, so you can see that this is the needle we're going to use. It's a needle. It's not really sharp. It's a little bit thick. It's called an embroidery needle, the thicker one. Accrual. They go circle like [inaudible]. Look, it leaves a bit of a mark. The islet is a bit bigger. You have also needles that are completely blunt like a round edge, but this has a bit of a point. I'm going to show you the basic stitches that we're using. This is the split stitch. You're in. It doesn't matter how big the distance is. Just make it a centimeter or something. You hold the tread a bit the first time, and then you go in the fibers. Now, I'm going to show you the stitches that we're going to use a lot. It's a long and short stitch, combine it with the split stitch. You basically go from one pint to the middle. In the beginning you make all the stitches the same lengths, and then when you have row, you're going to make them all different lengths. You're just going to fill the area like this. Keep your fabric really tight. Oh, I haven't talked about the hoops. See what you like. I use a stand, but if you're a beginner, I would just use on any hand. A medium size, like an 80 centimeter or a 15 centimeter desk, maybe the nicest. Now I'm going to show you how to remove stitches. You have this torn thing. I will put in a note what it's called in English. I am a rough stitcher, I have to admit. This is a bit hardcore. I'm picking. You can also gently remove it. Well, that's just how I roll, but I always completely am chaotic. This is not a class about how to do it to the [inaudible] Needlework Society, how to do it. But you can always take it out if you want to. That's the good thing about embroidery. Let's start.
3. Starting with the middle of the flower: We're going to start with our first stitch in the middle of the flower, the little circle with our yellow-greenish. You can see in the notes all the colors that we're going to use, and we're going to start right in the middle. For the back, just leave your thread hanging. Just hold it for now for like the two stitches and after that, you can just leave it hanging. You go from the middle to the outer side of the circle. See now I'm pulling and holding the thread. You're not going to go really next to it, like not super next to it, leave a little bit space. You just going to leave a little bit of space between them and then go to the next stitch. We're just going to go to the next stitch, all this time you're going to go to the middle. You will notice at some point there's just no space anymore in the middle because there's too much thread. But I will show you what we do then. It doesn't need to be precise, so don't worry that is not exactly at the circle. Also, don't worry how you trace it if all lines are not exactly straight because you will not see that in the end. It's also nicer, it's not completely perfect. I'm now getting some more thread. Six strands. Everything is going to be six, notice not two. One time we're going to use three strands. The problem is with six strands that you really run out of threads really fast, your floss is empty really quick. Here we go again and I'm holding my thread, going to the middle. I can still go to the middle. It's starting to already get a little bit difficult, and also it is with embroidery. It's [inaudible] you think it doesn't fit. But actually, you just have to push really hard, and then it fits. Today I'm not really into the middle anymore, I just go bit to the side. You just go in-between the other stitches. You will hear me saying that a lot, in-between the other stitches. You see that it's not completely, perfectly round. Now, you just randomly go in random space. I always do, I feel like I go with my needle, and then I just gently feel a little bit like, ah, can I squish the needle in here, and if I can then I push through. Yes, so now it's really just sides here and there, we're almost done. Also, don't worry about that it has to be perfectly closed. No worries if you see a little bit of fabric in-between that circle. Look there, it doesn't fit, I'm just going to push through. You can push pretty hard before anything that will happen. Just your fingers will get really painful. Especially when the weather is warm. Yes, so now I'm done. Does it already look nice? I think it does. Let's continue to the next video.
4. Long and Short Stitches: In this video, we're going to do the second color. We're going to do the second part, the outer part of the yellow. We're going to start right about there where you'd also traced it, hold the end a bit and you're going to go back in between, so somewhere in between those two yellow stitches. You will see two stitches and in between those stitches, you just wiggle it in. You will notice that it's a bit difficult because you have to really press through, but it doesn't matter. Don't worry about them not being too straight. Just as like if it's a circle in the middle, it doesn't really matter if it's not super straight or same length. You're basically doing the same thing as with the circle. We're going to leave some space in between and you go round the whole flower. See, I'm not making every stitch like the same length because with real flowers, it's also not that, it's not super precise. I think that's also adding to the niceness that it's not super perfect. You can tell the end of the other video that I was like, "It's getting dark, let's do this tomorrow again." Here it's nice lighting again. If you want to know things that I haven't mentioned before about where I bought it, this stand, I don't know if anybody's interested in where I bought the stand or the hoops. You can always ask me. We made a full circle again. Now it's going to be too difficult because now we really have to push. Now this is the needle painting part. You're going to go in between two stitches and, how do I say, you make it a little bit longer. We're also going to make one stitch in the outer stitch. So you're going to go up. We call this a split stitch, and you go in the outer fibers. Just wiggle it around a bit so it's not exactly in the middle. You take all the threads. That's just to give it a bit of a nice effect. We're going to go in between the two stitches, and you're going to go not in the yellow anymore, but you're going to wiggle it in between just a little bit next to it. Here I'm going to do the same, I'm going to go up and wiggle it a little bit and put it in the outer one. Sometimes you have to pull a little bit behind. This is actually what you're doing now. This is really what we call the thread painting, so the long and short stitch. You make two short, one long so that you can blend it. I'm not going to make everything the same height again. Here's going to be a bit longer, there a bit shorter. Still the same video but it's night time. If you put your needle and you come up, there will sometimes get a little bit of thread from other leftover threads that are in the back. Just pluck them away with nails. You can also see me in the video a lot that I with my scissors just cut it out. Also, don't worry if you still see some white in between, if it's not completely all close in this circle. Also, this is just a bit improvising because here I'm making an extra little bit of layer. It's also bit looking at what you want to do with the piece as you go along. Because remember that if you do the thread painting, you see this bun you think, "That's pretty a large part for it to be that dark purple." Trust me, in the end, it will not be that big. Make sure that the next stitch that you're going to put in is just going to be a little bit longer than the other stitch. Now I'm going to this side also do a little bit of outer split stitch. We go up because there I don't really see the lines good, so then I know where to go. You see? Because it's getting vague. To the next video.
5. Blending the colors together: We're going to start with the red pinkish one. We're going to do exactly the same. Go from the middle of that leaf and we're going to all the way go in there. So back to almost the yellow bar. I got to push hard. Don't worry, nothing can really break or rip. That's the great thing from embroidery, we can just do it all. That is the art of embroidery. So where am I going to place that needle? First of all, something is stuck there. But you're going to find a little spot that has a little bit of white anything here if I put it there, that's nice in between. You're going to make the stitches, not the same length. This first row of stitches are in-between the other stitches. Again in-between and push. See you just find a little entrance there. So you just go with your stitch and you slide your needle somewhere that you're like. Okay, there is an opening. Now you're going to make a long stitch. Squeeze it in there. I'll still squeeze it in there. In the end, we're going to also use the split stitch. Here we now see that we made a nice little row. Now I'm going to show you, we're going to make a longer one. We're going to put that in the other stitch. You're going to do that with all of them. I'm still a little bit guessing if I didn't make it too long, that I went too far up. Just sew what you like. Ensure you're now making the long ones and you go into the other stitch. You're splitting the other stitch. Excuse me for this. This is absolutely awful because I'm going to go out of the screen and you don't see what I'm doing. It's genius. Well, it's just me not seeing it on the computer and it only happens for three seconds. That is the last stitch of the pink reddish. Now we're going to do my favorite color, the bright orange.
6. Mixing two colors together: We're going to start with the orange. We're not going to do exactly the same because we're not going to use orange as much as the other colors. You're just going to put some stitches all the way around. It's not going to be that many. It's just nice for a subtle effect in between. We did a row the same length stitch and then the split stitch. Now, we're going to do the row and then some split stitches. See that's nice. It's coming along, and it's subtle. I also like it and it's not exactly the same length on every side. I hate it when that happens. You just grab your nails and fingers and you just pluck it out. We're heading to your last stitch, we're all round again, made the full circle, and now it's time to get the pink on. The next video will be the pink.
7. outline of the flower: As you can see, I already did some, and now I'm going to show you how. You're going to take two strands. You go up in the other stitch. Two strands, it's really easy. You're just going to follow the line. This is a great stitch because it's a nice stitch to also use for if you just want to have a line drawing that you want to trace, you can have a really nice smooth line. You're just going to go all the way over the leaf and then into the beginning so that you really see that it's a petal. Why do I call it a leaf? It's a petal, I'm sorry. English is not my first language, and some things are just petal, leaf, yeah. But you know what I mean, so then it's fine. We're almost done. We did this step now because if you do it at the end, then it's difficult to see the line. This is easier for yourself to get an outline and to know where to go with the pink. After this we're going to go on to the pink.
8. filling in with pink: As you can see, I already did a part, so you can look at it. You're not going to start all the way at the end, you're going to start a little bit in the middle. You just going to repeat what we already did. It's going to be a little bit difficult because you need to get really close to the outline of the petal. Try to get as close as you can. But that's the last row that you do, so don't worry about it now. Now, you're just going to do the same thing that we did before. Now we made a row, first row. Now, we're going to do the same thing as you did before. With this stitch, I'm already going against the petal line. You can see that this forms the line a bit but you can fix that with the other stitch, so just go over that. You can see that it's really precise. You can see there's a lot of layering because you don't want to have this stitches too long because that doesn't look good. But the problem that I have with this is that, at one point it gets a bit boring because it's so much pink and then you're like, oh. Yes I love embroidery but sometimes you can have too much of one color. Then it's also good to switch it up, go to a different project because then sometimes you end up making mistakes or making it not pretty. I'm not going to show you all the petals because it's the same thing. Now, we're going to go to the last part.
9. shading the flower: Now we're going to start with the last part. First, we're going to go with pinkish color. I'm just going to go like we did before. You going to go split stitching it, or you go a little bit in between. Here. Then you go just in between and just look how you think it looks prettiest, this is how I do it. For this part, we're using two colors. Here you go make a split stitch. I do this as last because it blends nice in. Because the light pink is so much layers that it's nicer if you do the shading part as last because then it sits on top of it. Now I'm going to take another color. It's purple, pinkish, to give it a nice effect, a nice shading effect. We're just going to peep those in between. No man, it's getting really tough getting that needle in now. You basically get what you're going to do now with the purple. Is that you place it somewhere that you think, that's going to look nice in between two stitches that I made and you go pretty far to the end. That's it. You're going to do that everywhere. I said I'm going to show you guys one side only because to do all the side it's like the same thing. Thank you for watching.
Floor Giebels, Embroidery Artist
