Hand Embroidery Without a Hoop: The Circle Sampler

1. Introduction: Hello, I'm April scroll and I'm a mixed media textile artist and designer. I use lots of different surface design techniques like the dying painting, printing and stitching of fabrics and papers to create my art for my business, sprawl studios, I create one-of-a-kind fine art pieces, stencils for painting on fabric, collections of hand embroidery, patterns and kids, and workshops on the Mixed Media techniques I use to make art. I originally learned hand stitch and so for my grandmother's when I was really young, my early experiences with what they taught me about making sparked a lifelong interests in the love of creating in different mediums. I've explored lots of artistic mediums, but hand embroidery is become my all-time favorite. It's just so wonderful to see the stitches emerge on fabric and paper. I love having projects. I can toss in a bag and take with me almost anywhere as well. There's something so calming and rewarding about the repetitive movement of the needle and thread moving through the fabric. And that's one of the reasons embroidery has become a daily practice for me. Now let's move on to the project I created for you that you'll be making in this class. 2. The Circle Sampler Project: Alright, so let's talk about the project. This is your project description. So we will, we will be stitching an eight inch square of fabric using just basic tools and supplies. The most important thing you will probably learn is the work process and the workflow. And that includes just the step-by-step process that I use for getting really great results. And I'm sure that you will too, because that's really important to set up a good practice like that. So I have two templates that I provide. So the first one is just concentric circles and this is all you need to get started. And I will go through all of the marking and all of those details. So here is the second template, and it's just a lighter version printed lighter than the first one. It allows you to create your own designs. So this is the little mock-up I did for this example. And you can see that I just filled it in with colored pencils. You can do different sections, different ways, whatever you desire. So you can either follow along with me step-by-step and recreate this one exactly. Or you can create your own version. It's up to you. So you will learn to easily and quickly mark your design. People sometimes dread marking. I don't know why it's not a big deal. It's kind of nice to have those marks for reference and they will come out completely so you don't have to worry about any of that. We'll talk about the benefits of using a stabilizer on the backside. And that's the stabilizer that stays and it's optional. You don't have to do that. But I recommend it if you can, because it really helps to even out your stitches and it just makes the whole process so much easier. We will be doing all of this embroidery without a hoop. And I have numbered or without a hoop because I get such better results. And it's so much easier. I mean, once you've learned to do that and just gotten used to it, which only takes a short amount of time. You'll never want to go back to using an embroidery hoop. So then we will start out very simply by just outlining the shapes. And I will walk you through it step-by-step. It's not complicated. There's nothing hard about it. And I think you will really enjoy this process. We will also learn to create beautiful textures and patterns using just four basic stitches. So this entire piece was created with just those four stitches. And you can practice on a scrap of fabric first if you like, and then go on from there. And you will receive a supply list, like I said, the two templates and a sequence guide for stitching. If you want to go back and look up exactly what I use and a certain step, you can do that. And I have this sequence included in most of the videos. So you know exactly where you're at and you can stop and look that up. That is it for the project description. So let's go ahead and get started on our project. 3. The Best Tools and Supplies: Now we have the tools and supplies that I recommend using. So I will tell you why I like these tools. So for my marking, I use the friction pins. They are heat erasable, which means as soon as I presser steam the fabric, all the marks go away. So you get a really nice, clean, precise mark with these. I've never had any problem with them coming back. Some people say they have, but you should test it for yourself and make sure or use your, your favorite fabric marker. And next we have beeswax. So I use the beeswax for waxing all of my thread before I. So I also use it for the embroidery floss and it helps to keep the thread from getting tangled up and nodded. And all you do is run the thread through a couple of times. I'll demonstrate that for you and then smooth the wax off with your hands. And it works really, really well. Next I have pins. I like these small little pins. These are, these are actually garment sewing pins. I think they call them silk pins a lot of times. But they have a sharp point and a thin shaft. And so it's really great for pinning your fabric width. Next we have embroidery needles, and these are combination pack, and they have sizes five to ten. The needles on the outside are the smallest, and they are the size ten. And so the embroidery needles have a very sharp point and they have a long oval I, that's easy to thread. So if you tried to do hand embroidery with a regular sewing needle, you would be very frustrated in no time at all. So I recommend trying some good needles. They aren't expensive and they usually last for quite awhile. And next we have scissors. So I like to use embroidery scissors. These are nice. They have a big ring for your fingers, so they're really easy to grab, they're really sharp, only use them for cutting thread and that way they stay sharp for a really long time. And then I use plastic, these plastic rulers that they use her drafting and things like that. So I use them for pretty much everything there see-through. They have a grid that's marked in 1 eighth inch increments. So it makes it great to work with and really easy for marking things. Next. Now we can talk about some of the supplies that I have listed in the supply list. And so I recommend using DMC embroidery floss, cotton embroidery floss. If you have access to other threads or losses that you like, certainly use those. But this is what I find to be really reliable and it's very easy to get. And so if I run out, I have no problem running to the store and finding mark. And that's important because you don't want to run out of embroidery floss in the middle of a project. So these are some of the colors that I've chosen for this project. And there's a list of all the colors in the supply list that you can download and print. Then for the fabrics I use, I often use silk stabilizer. So it's a silk or danza. It's not very expensive and it works really well for a stabilizing your fabric when you're stitching. And I'll show you how to use that. You want to have some regular sewing thread to match your background fabric, whatever color you're using so that you can base it is to your top fabric, to the organs, and also for stitching around the edge to keep it from fraying. And then the main fabric you use, you want to make sure that you can see through the fabric to the pattern. You can always use a light box or a window, but I tried to make my patterns dark enough when I design them so that you can actually see it without needing a light box. So all you need to do is pin your fabric to the pattern, the template, and market from there. So it's pretty, a pretty easy process. I liked his linen because it's so easy to stitch through and it's such a beautiful fabric. But other fabrics would be suitable as well. Maybe a really lightweight wool. Cotton or silk would be great as well. So that's it for the tools and supplies. And next we can get started on our project. 4. Project Preparation: Now we are ready to start on our, our project. So you need to have your template and your fabric. And make sure you have the right side of your fabric up. If you can't tell the difference, that probably doesn't matter that much. And you need a few straight pins. And you're going to pin your pattern through the fabric to the paper. Pinned to the corners like this. Make sure it's even. And then we'll put a couple in the center area. That should be good. You can always move those around as we need to. And then I'm going to use a red friction pen. Please. The read quite a bit because it's not quite as dark as a lot of the other ones. So you can still see it well enough. So when you mark, you just want to mark dark enough so that you can see all of your lines, but it's not overdone. So when I make my patterns, I tried to make them dark enough so that I can actually see all the lines right through. And I don't have to use a light table or anything. So I'm just marking lightly. And because said I'm going to mark all the lines. Just kind of hold it in place with your fingers as you mark. The workflow that I follow is to mark a little, I just mark enough minds to get started with my stitching. And then I will stitch these lines and then steam block it as I go. When I mark these straight lines, it's easier to just put a little kind of a hatch mark there and then draw the lines in with a ruler. End up getting them a lot straighter. So you want to mark those lines, The dissect the shape. And they'll go all the way through the center. Just a couple of more lines. So all of my marketing is done. And that's what I've ended up with. Alright, so I'm gonna take my piece of silk or danza. I was using up some scraps of fabric, the soccer games, so, so mine is not exactly square, but it's nice to have an inch around the outside of your fabric because it gives you something to hold onto as you're stitching through, just going to pin that in place. And next, we will base that down. Alright, so now I have my regular needle and thread. Just easier to do this with regular sewing thread. And I run it through the wax so I don't get it nodded. And I just do the regular little sewing not where you wrap the thread around your finger and pull it off and do a, make a little knot. So I'm going to stitch close to the edge. I'm gonna go in-between where that first line of marking is. The silk organiza is kind of slippery. The advantages that it's really thin and very easy to stitch through, but it doesn't stretch out of shape. And it holds its shape really well. So if you washed it, it would come out really soft. It would be almost like chiffon. Because it has something in it from the silkworms called Sarah sin. That gives it that little bit of extra body. And I've just fallen in love with it to use for a stabilizer. So I'm going to go all the way around the outside. And then I'm going to go in through the center. So I will be back when I'm done with that and show you what I've done. So you want to use a light color or a white, something where you can see it, pull it out, but it doesn't interfere visually with your work as you're stitching. Now I have my piece all base did and basically what I did was I stitched around the outside and then I switch to the center. And in quarters, you can just do maybe three stitches each way, whatever you wanna do, or three of these centers, but it really does help to hold everything intact. And then here around the edge I've just done a little kind of a whip stitch. So it's just a little overcast stitch and that holds that raw edge really well. And then next we can start doing our stitching. 5. Stitching Basics and Foundation Stitching: So now we are ready to start our stitching. And the workflow that I follow that works very well for me is to mark a little bit. So just mark what you really need to get started and then stitch a little bit. And then in-between. Before you mark again, you can steam block everything so it lays very nice and flat and even, and that will make a huge difference in your work. So to begin with, I have the DMC embroidery floss. Here's the number at the bottom. And you can see how I have a tale of thread sticking out floss, I should say. So what you're gonna do is just pull that straight out. And I pull it the length from my the tip of my fingers to my shoulder. And that's the general way that I measure my thread. Loosely twisted together. And so I've pulled off two on the side here. That's what I'm going to work with. And I can just pull my finger all the way down the center to separate those strands and set this piece aside. Alright, so now I've got my two strands. Sometimes you need to trim that end off a little bit. And then you're going to hold the ends of your thread very close to the end. And then you just kind of push the eye of the needle over the top. So I'm using a size ten needle, which is a pretty small. But the threat, the size of needle that you want to use is the size that is the easiest to get your thread through. Because if you can't thread your needle, you're going to have a really hard time getting very much stitching done and you'll be really frustrated. Now to do a not. What I just did was I ran my thread over the top of the wax and then I smooth it out with my fingers. And now I'm going to put the thread over the top of my needle and then wrap it around twice. Now I put the little tail over what I'm holding and slip it off the end of the needle, holding it in my fingers. I end up with a really nice little not okay. So I trim my thread close to that. Not the first stitch we're going to do. This is going to be in the center here. And so I'm going to start on the outside. And then I'm going in between an eighth and a quarter of an inch. So about three-sixteenths of an inch. And I'm coming back up in that same hole where it started. So again, I'm keeping my thread to the bottom. So I am making a little stitch. And then you can see my thread is actually being carried over from here all the way over to here. So that's why you want to keep your actual stitches pretty short. And you can just continue on across. And then I'll show you how to get to the next part. And then at the very end, to finish, you just go down in the same hole and pull your thread through to the back. Now, when you go over to the next section, you could do it a couple of ways. You could either do a little tiny stitch here and just catch the silk organic and wind your way over. Which is the easiest thing actually. Since this is gonna be pretty solid by the time I'm done with this stitching in the center, it's probably not going to show through. But if you were just stitching on a thin layer of white fabric, you would probably not want to do this. Okay. So there's my next little spoke in the center. So I'm just going to continue on stitching these. Alright. Now I have one last little section to do and I wanted to show you how I finish my thread off. You can use shorter thread if you want, but I just don't like to have to change my thread anymore than I have to. So I like to use a little bit longer thread than some people. And when you're going through the center here, you can just kinda go underneath. It will be solid when you're finished here in the center, but you don't want a huge, big lump on the top. So I'm to my last stitch. That's pretty much tying this off on the back is pretty much the same way. So I'm gonna go again down through my last hole. Then I'll flip it over and then go through underneath. Just catch that stitch once, twice and you're going underneath that stitch. And next we will go ahead and do the blanket or buttonhole stitch as some people call it. I'm going to use a darker blue. This first one was the 38103810. So it's medium, medium to dark turquoise. And this next one is 3765. So it's a darker blue. So you're going to start and you're starting on the outside, very outside circle. And then you're going to come up right on the inner line here. Then you're going to come up just a couple of threads over from that line. Then instead of doing the stitches all the same length, we're going to do a short stitch that goes half the length and I'm not quite a quarter of an inch part. You're coming up right on that line. Okay, We're going back underneath. And the thread goes through the loop here. Alright, so it's coming up, you have a loop. The thread goes over the top. And that's what makes it catch right here. Okay. So don't worry in the beginning about your stitches being really perfect. You can just practice on a scrap of fabric if you like. And just go all the way around. And what you want to do as you're working this stitch is you want to make sure that your stitches follow the angles here. So you want to keep, you can divide that in half and just use that as a reference if that helps you out. But you don't want them to start getting to slanted one direction or the other. And if you wanted to put another mark halfway in here to help you get used to doing just a little bit of that. Half the stitch instead of the full length. You could also try that. Whatever makes it easiest for you. And again, you want to pay close attention to your stitch length. You don't want it. You want it to be taught, but not too tight. So what we're doing here, I call this doing the foundation stitching. And what we're doing is we're stitching a little bit in each area. Because what that does is it anchors all the fabric down and distribute your stitching more evenly so that in the end, your fabric won't be puckered and drawn up and it'll be a lot easier to stitch this way. 6. Adding Details: Alright, so I've made quite a bit of progress since you last saw the piece. And what I'm going to do now is show you how to finish off the blanket stitch. So I've done the blanket stitch all the way around the outside and I have the long and the short stitch. So now I'm going to show you how to finish that off. I'm right here in the center and I'm going to put one more because I have two long stitches here. I'm going to cook. I'm going to put one more short stitch right in the center there. Alright. And then to end this, I'm just going to bring it right over to here. So now you can see how that ends up pretty nicely there. And then on the back we have that one little stitch. So again, just catching the soccer games and trying not to catch the outer fabric. Just going to slip it through a couple of times and then make a little tiny naught there and trim my thread. And then going back over here, this is the stem stitch. And so I've started outlining the shapes. And now I have a couple of more stitches. So you can see I have enough room here for about two more short little stitches. And I wanted to show you how to turn a corner and get a nice sharp corner like I have on these others. So I'm going to end I going back in that last little hole there. Then I'm going to come up just a couple of threads to the left of that, just to the outside so that if I came up right in the same hole, I would just pull my thread back through. So I made just a little tiny stitch there by going over just going over a couple of stitches and then I just continue on down with my line. I can show you what that looks like on the backside. So it's nice to do it this way because if you had carried it over on the back and you're using white fabric and it went at a, at a diagonal there. You would see the thread through the white fabric possibly. So I'm just going to continue stitching this. Now we're ready to do the next part. And so all you really need to do for this is take your ruler, line it up with your center right there, and then go out to the very corner of your fabric. And then you can mark your line. So just mark the center line. Alright, so now you're going to mark you're dividing lines. So I've sketched mine out here in pencil and I'm just regular pencil and colored pencil to give me an idea of how it's going to look. And so what I'm gonna do is mark the, around the outside of this white area. And so I will mark down the center first. So all I did was I line up my center with the outside corner and marked a line. And then I'm going to mark just like an eighth of an inch to the outside of that on each side. So when you stitch, it takes up some width. And what we'll do is do a stem stitch down each side and then we'll do French knots down the middle. And so I will go ahead and stitch that for you. It doesn't matter which direction you go. The gray acts as a great blender for other colors if you ever have the colors that don't go together too well, the gray is just perfect for that. Alright, so I'm finally back again. So you can see how much I've done since the last time I was here. And now I'm going to continue on with just a little bit more stitching. So what I'm trying to do is stitch everything that I've marked. Now, if you try to mark every single line, especially at the beginning, you're just going to end up with a big mess and you won't have any idea what's supposed to be stitched, in what order or in which color. So this is where I prefer to work. You can see how it's getting a little bit wonky here. I'm getting some puckering. It's not very even, this is what I call The Ugly Duckling phase. And pretty much everything I make those through that phase where it just doesn't look very good. It might not look that appealing. It might not look perfect. It might even look like there's no hope for it. But it's just part of the process because as you keep working, It's going to come to life and it's going to develop its own personality and charm. And you probably will not be able to put it down and stop stitching. So just bear through this phase and keep going. I do all my searching in the evenings, so I usually will sit and stay for a couple of hours each evening. And it's become a regular practice for me and that's how you get better at things. And so next, I'm just going to stitch across the bottom of these shapes for right now. And then I'll show you how to do the running stitch. Okay, so because my running stitch will, but right up to that on the inside. And so I need to pretty much have that stitched first. But for right now I'm just going to stitch across the bottom of each of these. Tend to two. Use my red pen a lot, so it's about worn-out. And I just like the red because it's not as dark as the blue or the black. And so it doesn't interfere with your design decisions quite as much. Okay, so I'll start right here. And I'm gonna go just inside that line. And the running stitch is just up from the back. And then my stitches are gonna be equal distance apart. So you can stack several stitches on your needle at a time, just like I have. And then you pull it up, you kind of smooth it out. And that's the general role when you're stitching without an embroidery hoop. You just, as you stitch, it's important to just smooth those stitches out. Now, if your stitches don't look perfect to you or are they don't look exactly like mine? Don't worry about that. I mean, your stitches absolutely improve in time. And it's kind of like your own personal signature. So I really don't even think about the stitch length very much. So you could choose to either go underneath or over the coral stitch. I'm just gonna go underneath. And again, I'm going just like a 16th of an inch or so. From that line. Just pull it up, smooth it out. Then I have one tiny bit of a stitch right there. And actually I'm going to pull that up right there and just pull it out. Now, I'm going to show you the inside part. Here. It doesn't matter. You can go over under whatever you feel like. So we'll just go over this time. You can see the difference a little bit more in. And then I'm gonna go up to the center. If I have very far to carry my thread, I will usually just kinda go through the stitches on the backside to get there so that it's just not a big loose thread hanging over the back. So you can mark this if you want. It's not really necessary. You just going down, up, down, up. Something I tried to do is to when I have several rows, I will try to stagger my stitches. And that means, so here the thread is on the top here it's going to be underneath. So it doesn't always work out that way. But I will try. I'm going right down the center In-between those stitches. You know, in a few think it looks your stitches look a little bit wonky or off or, you know, probably no one no one is gonna notice that by the time you're done. So I would just not be concerned. And then I have one more row here. So I'm going to do the same thing here. This line in here, the smart, That's where my next row of stitching is going to start. And that's going to be a different type of a stitch. Okay? So here I'm going to do the same thing and I'm going to stitch right on that line. I'm going to stitch inside of it just a hair. So I will continue stitching in this space and then I will come back in a little bit when I have some more done to show you. 7. Making Progress: All right, so now I want to show you what I just finished stitching. So I finished doing my running stitch all the way around the outside of this circle. And again, I'm stitching dislike a little fraction of an inch, 16th of an inch from beyond that line, the other side of it. And so I've gone all the way around with that. And then I also did the same thing here. I stitched my stem stitch the bottom of this shape. And then I did my running stitch close to that. Next I did, I'm more on the central medallion. And so what I did was I stitched another row of stitching in-between each of the original lines that I had in the same color thread. And at the end, I'll go in and do a lighter row of stitching. So now I'm going to do the blanket stitch in this area right here. So I'm going to start here. See I need a bigger not we'll start right here. Then I'm gonna come up just inside of that gray. Then I want to come up just the other side of where that stitches. Okay. So I can start doing my blanket stitch. So you can do these further apart or closer together, whichever you prefer. I'm not coming up to close to where gray stitching is because otherwise it will kind of overlap it. So I'm gonna come up about and not quiet an eighth of an inch away. And I'm not trying to align my stitches up with these spokes in the center because I want them to be a little bit closer together than that. And you just kind of push up with your finger underneath and you'll get a nice stitch. So, um, that is going to be the last drove stitching I do before I can, um, go ahead and steam block this. So I will show you how to do that next. All right, now we're finally to the best part, which is not being finished, but it's to the point where we can actually do some steam basting. Let me grab some pins right here. And so you can see I just finished doing the blanket stitch around the inside here. And so I'm I've gotten I've got everything stitched that I had marked. Alright. And so now I have all of that information for the rest of any marking that I need to do. And so I'm in great shape and you can see how it's gotten pedigree and I'm just kind of ungainly and an even. So now we're going to even things up. So I flip it over to the back end. I'm going to begin steaming this. Alright, so I hold my iron a quarter of an inch above the surface of the fabric on the backside. So I steam it gently and then I can start stretching it out a little bit. So linen is really interesting because when you wet it, it relaxes the fibers a lot. So it becomes all bubbly and funny looking and it sort of stretches itself all out of shape. But as it cools, shrinks back up. It tight, actually tightens it. And a lot of other fabrics like silks can do the opposite. So you do need to watch if you're ever doing wet blocking on I'm like silk crept machine, you might have issues with that. So what I do is I just kind of stretch it out a little bit because anywhere there's more stitching, there's a chance that it will be brought in more drawn in more like on the points here close to the edge. So I'm just going to let that cool for a bit. It's still warm. But I can go ahead and steam it a little bit more. So I'll fit my iron in here. And again, I'm just holding it a quarter of an inch above. So let me give it one more quick press on the front. And again, I'm just skimming over the top. You never want to put pressure on your stitches and flatten them out. So I will just stretch that out a tiny bit and let it cool. And then, um, there'll be able to move on. Now I'm outlining my shapes here. And what I'm doing is the stem stitch and I'm doing, I have an outline stitch in the coral, the lighter color. Now I'm going in with the rest. So I'm just doing the stem stitch and I'm just doing Rose close together. So they kind of stack up. And I did one row in the coral. I'm doing three rows in the dark rest round. Alright. So that's the filling. And then I'll decide what to do in here. And it really changes the way your threads look. I mean, look at the difference here with the running stitch, where it's much more open, but the same color where it's filled in solid. So you can get a lot of different interests using minimal colors. 8. The Final Touches: Now we are ready to follow up on the progress that I've made. I've finished stitching around these shapes. I'm ready to actually do my French knots now. So a lot of people have trouble with French knots. They really liked them, but they have issues. And that's usually for a couple of reasons. And I would recommend that if you haven't done any of these stitches before, just practice on a scrap of fabric until you feel comfortable with them. So I'm going to start in here, close. Now with French knots. You can use, you could do French knots with one strand of floss. They wouldn't be very small, very tiny, but that would be possible. You could also use six strands. I never use six strands because it makes it really hard to pull the needle through the naught when you have that much thread. So what I'm going to do is I want these to be fairly large, so I'll do a little sample and see if they're the right size. So what I'm doing is I'm putting my needle down close to the fabric. I'm wrapping my thread around twice. Now I'm going just a couple of threads. My fabric away from where my needle came up. A lot of people will go right in the same hole. And then when they pull the knot through. So you can see I'm holding this very close. So a lot of people when they pull the needle all the way through, they'll pull so hard that the whole not pops through to the other side. So that would be very frustrating. But all you need to do is pull until your thread is through the other problem people have a lot is getting their thread all tangled up. Then they end up with a huge mess. Okay? What I do is I just hold it with my thumb until the thread is through. Now I just carry it over on the back to the next spot. You can mark these if you want. You can also just do just eyeball it. So I'm going around my needle twice, going over a couple of threads from where I first came up. I'm pulling those loops down to where my needle goes into the fabric. Then I'm going to hold my finger there so that the thread doesn't get tangled up. And you see how easy it is. And you can make perfect French knots. No problem whatsoever. I like them because they give a very different texture to your work and add a lot of interests. And what's amazing is how each little section changes the piece so much that always amazes me. I wanted something to connect these blues visually. And I think that's going to work really well. So I don't know, I might not put anything in here at all. It takes working through the whole piece gradually and developing the different areas. And then you can see what you're gonna get. Here. You don't have anything else to anchor those stitches. Just go back underneath your last knot and then pull it through. Just do one little not of course, if you were going to wash this and use it a lot, you might secure it with a couple of loops there and knots. Now we are up to stitching in these areas. And that is in-between the concentric circles that are numbered 45 on your first template. So we're going to stitch these long rows of stitches here. And those are called straight stitches. And I wanted to show you how I would mark that on my paper. So if you used your lightly printed template that's printed in the light gray, this would make it pretty easy for you to mark. So all I did here was to use my ruler. And from these lines, I marked it in a quarter of an inch from here to here. Alright? And also one-quarter inch from here to here. Alright? So you can just kind of practice on your little handout that I gave you. And then you can mark it on your fabric. And it will give you a better idea of what you're doing. Okay. And I'll fill this in with some colored pencils so you can see how I did that. In the center. I just marked it in this shape. I just marked through the very center of the shape with pencil and then about a quarter of an inch total. So 1 eighth of an inch on either side. So it would look like this with a straight stitches. Just to give you an idea. Okay. So I would use my gray straight stitches to mark in here or stitch in here. And then for these outer areas, what I did was close to the gray lines here with the blue French knots. I did a little bit of green, just a short little bit on each side of that. So so a little bit of green. Okay, and then I use my blue. So here's my piece. And here's a little practice swatch that I've marked. So these, um, these rows are a quarter of an inch wide. So I'm starting on the top and going down to the bottom. Right, and then back up here to the top. So I'm going right on the line. When you pull it, you don't want to go too tightly because what you'll start to do is this where your puckering it in-between. So you wanna do it a little bit loose. I'm leaving like the width of one thread in between because I don't want it to be like a satin stitch. I don't want the stitches packed into tightly next to one another. So I'm leaving a little bit of space. Okay? So I'm going over-the-top, some coming up on the top. I'm going straight down to the bottom here. Alright? And then I'm going back over kind of at an angle a little bit underneath. And let me do a couple of Morris. I'm going straight down, back up at an angle. Okay? And if it seems a little awkward at first, you can kind of pull your thread down like that to figure out where it's going to be straight, directly perpendicular. Alright, and just keep going. So I did this same straight stitch. I'm in all three of these sections here, here and here. And so in my center here, I've gone back in. And after a stitch, the first marked lines here in the center with a darker turquoise. Then I went back and I stitched in between again. And then I did a third row in the center with this light blue. And so you can see these are shorter. So I marked a little bit smaller circle. And that's where I ended my stitches on that little row inside with the lighter blue stitching. Now, I'm just going right outside there with more French knots. This time I'm doing them smaller because it's a really small area. So whereas before here we use three strands of floss. Now I'm using two and I'm wrapping my thread around three times. So now we're almost finished and the only thing we have left to stitch is the background. And I just wanted to show you on here these straight lines that are running parallel to the edges. Those are just reference lines for the background. So I mark my lines this way because you have to allow for the width of the ruler. So if it's important that you try to fit a certain number of lines in. It works well to do it that way. So I'm just stopping when I get close to where the stitching is for the outside of the circle there. So now everything is marked. So I haven't marked in quarter-inch increments and that just gives me a good guideline. It's not necessary to do that much markings, just a matter of personal preference. And it's easier to just go ahead and mark it now because as I complete stitching one section, it's going to pull it out of kilter a little bit and it's just easier to mark it now while it's all flat. So I'm going to do a combination of just kind of a light beige colored thread and the gray. And so I'll see how it looks and we'll go from there. Okay. So here what I've done is more of a long, That's actually that's a regular running stitch here. I did a long and a short. So I'm just going to mix these up a little bit for a little bit more interest. Alright, so now you can see this area is pretty well stitched. I have to do one little bit here. So I'm going to repeat all the way around and then remove some of my marks with my iron and decide if I want to fill in anything else with backgrounds stitching. But, um, I will come back when I'm up to that point and share my progress with you. Alright, now, I'm really happy all of my stitching is finished and all I need to do is give it a light. Press from the back. I found this little board stashed away that has all these straight lines marked on here. So it's kind of nice. Sometimes I use a little template I've made. So all I do is steam it lately. Put a couple of pins in here. And then next we will move on to the finishing. 9. Finishing: So for this piece, I've decided to mount my embroider panel on an eight by eight inch gallery wrapped canvas panel. And what I'm doing now is prepping it. So I've masked off the front side with just blue painters tape and I mask off the backside and the front side where I don't want the paint to go because I'm using white fabric, that gray paint could show through the fabric itself on the front side. And I don't want that to happen. So I'm just painting on the very edge and making sure that it's covered. And I'm painting one coat of paint on and then I'll flip it over and do the backside. I'll do the same thing on the back. And this is a lesser quality paint. And so I will have to let it dry in-between coats and add another coat of paint to the top and that should cover it pretty well. I will show you in a minute how to attach the embroidered piece to the Canvas. I really like the way these pieces look. They look nice, just sitting on a desktop or or hanging on the wall. And it's a pretty quick way to display your work. Alright, so I've prepared, finished preparing my canvas. It's ready to go. And now all I have to do is trim my silk organiza off the back of my fabric. So I want to be really careful not to cut that stitching that I've done. I'm just trimming like 16th of an inch from the edge just in case because I don't like to go back and repair things. If I can possibly help, and I'm almost done. My last side, I'd rather err on the cautious side here. And I'm just going to trim that little thread off right there. So now I have my piece all trimmed. And all I have to do is put it on top of here and center it. The edges of these gallery wrapped canvases are really nice because they have a slight little curve to them. They're not just square. It will actually wrap around the edge. So I'm going to put, I'm just poke some pins all the way through the Canvas to hold it all in place. And the glue that I'm using is Roxanne's glue based it it's a temporary blip basing glue for fabric. And I want to do something that's not completely permanent. And that way if I needed to actually pull it off and use this piece or something else I could. So all I need to do is, and I'm not quite ready. I'm going to use this panel, something in a little bit, so I'm not going to actually glue it on here today, but all I would do is run two or three small little beads of glue across one direction. And then flip this down and smooth it down and let it dry for a little bit, just so you're not pulling it up when you go to finish it. And then what I do is flip it over once it's dried. So I flip it over to the back. And then I actually put my glue right on the very edge of the fabric here. Alright? And so this way I can see exactly where it's gonna go. I don't want glue all over the canvas where there's not any fabric. And that way I can be assured that it's going to be right on the very edge. And so let me quickly grab another piece that's done. I will share that with you. 10. Conclusion and Take Away: Well, you covered an awful lot of information in this class, including which suppliers to use and why marketing techniques. Great basic tips to make the stitching process easier and how to finish and display your work. Moving forward, I hope you'll keep in mind the basic workflow you followed and use it in the future. And don't forget about the design concept of varying your stitches to create contrast, texture, and dimension with your embroidery. Please leave a comment to let us know what your favorite part of class was. And don't forget to share a photo of your work when it's done. We'd really love to see what you've done with this project. I'd be very happy to answer any questions, so don't hesitate to get in touch and thank you very much for taking this class. You can follow me on Skillshare to find out what my new classes are released. In the meantime, happy stitching.