Modern Embroidery: Simple Stitches to Spice Up Your Wardrobe

1. Introduction: Do you enjoy expressing yourself with your clothes and accessories? Are you loving the embroidery trend, but wishing you could personalize it, then this class is for you. Hi, I'm Kathleen Lyons. I'm an artist and digital marketer based in Nashville, Tennessee. I graduated from Audubin University with a BA in Art and started my career as a graphic designer working outside of Chicago. Today, I spend my nine to five as a digital marketer. I spend my nights and weekends pursuing my creative career. I sell my work through pronounced man sites such as Society Six and Pubble, as well as my own Etsy shop. I primarily focus on hand lettering, illustration, and surface design. And now all of those skills have just seamlessly transferred into my embroidery practice. My journey into embroidery was inspired when I became pregnant with my daughter. We had a ton of gender neutral clothes and from my son, but I wanted to find a way to make them uniquely hers. It turned out to be super easy and so satisfying to turn something gray into something sweet and grily. Adding embroidery breathes new life into fabrics, whether it's clothes accessories or the traditional fabric in a hoop. It's such a fun and unique expression of your taste. Today I'll be showing a few ways of how to add embroidery to your existing clothes or accessories to not only express yourselves but upcycle some of those tired phase into new loves. What are we waiting for? Let's start stitching. I'll see you all in the next lesson. 2. Class Project: Class Project Time. Okay, for this class, your project is going to be to embroider a piece of clothing or accessory of your choice, and then share an image of the finished piece with the class. Use a pattern from the project resources or create your own, apply the pattern to your piece of clothing or accessory. And then embroider the piece with your unique selection of colors and stitches. Lastly, you'll share your final project with the class by uploading to your project section. Feel free to include any detail shots of your piece process or even behind the scenes if you'd like. If you share your project on Social, be sure to use the hashtag arts stitches so we can follow each other there as well. Key takeaways. Share your piece with the class by uploading an image to the project resources section. Please feel free to share your process photos and any behind the scene clips with the class. Those are so fun to see how everybody works and gets to choose their own colors and unique stitches. The more we share, the more we learn. And be sure to tag your work on social if you share there as well, I'd love to be able to follow. Let's use hashtag arts stitches. I'll see you on the next lesson. 3. Supply Suggestions: This lesson, we'll be talking all about supplies. Recommendations are in the project and resources section, but feel free to make adjustments. This is ultimately your creation. Come along As I show you a few of the things that I use. First suggestion on the list is a light board. Mine is here. Unfortunately, I couldn't find this exact one. I think it's been discontinued, but I linked to similar one in the project resources. This is totally optional. You can also hold your fabric up to a window. Works just as well. But really this is just for tracing. You light up the board, you'll be able to trace your pattern onto your piece of fabric. The second item on the list is carbon paper. Grab it, little noisy carbon paper. And then you can have have little stencils that come with it. I'd like the set that I have from Amazon. This is an easy way to trace. I would just make sure that you are really careful about where you put your stitches and try to cover this hoops. I get a package with lots of different hoops. I like to work with different sizes. It also depends on if you have a large piece of clothing, you want to do like a back piece on a jacket. Or if you're working on just like fabric in a hoop is the five by five is my favorite for that, but I have a link there. There's lots of different sizes. Choose what works best for you, if you're only working on shoes or like a pouch or something like that, you may not even need the hoop Use as needed and get the size that works for the piece that you're wanting to do. Next is one of my favorites. I have the call these, they're heat erasable pens. I have the same ones linked. They also come with little fills. These are great. This is actually erasable pen, so even if you're just wanting a pen that you can erase, these are wonderful. But the best part about this is if you want to free hand on a piece, you can just draw onto your fabric and stitch. And once you're done, just use a hair dryer. I think you'll probably even put it in the dryer too and just let the heat erase your lines. It's really fun, especially if you're free handing. I really love using that option. If you're not into free handing, this will be your best friend. This is my favorite. It's water soluble, literally, you can print onto it. You stick it onto the fabric. I actually, I used it for this one. You stick it onto the fabric and then you stitch over top of your drawing or the print, and then you just rise it with water. Do a little bit of massaging, but it comes off pretty easily. Another option, if you're not wanting to draw, you're not wanting to trace. Just print it out and stick it on scissors. You can use anything, but I really love these. You can actually take these on flights or travel. You can also take needles with you. I've learned all of this. Dmc is usually my go to. There's a lot of different sizes and it depends on your fabric, it depends on what kind of thread you're working with, if you're working with floss, if you're working with yarn, be sure to check them out. Juan's, Michael's, any kind of hobby shop, we'll have them so you can go and see them in person and compare it with whatever thread you're wanting to use. But we will need a needle, so make sure you get those. And then floss, floss, thread yarn, whatever you want to use. I actually take mine out and I put them on little cards. And then I try to remember to write the number on there. So if I run out of it, I know which one to get. Don't have to do that. It's a lot of extra work, but I really enjoy seeing it in a nice, pretty package. And it helps when I'm going to look for colors, to be able to lay them out together and not get them tangled. Pick whatever color just speaks to you, especially with your piece. Think about fun colors, things that might pop against what you're working with, Just a favorite color palette that you have, or something that you think really works with the design. That's what's going to make it really uniquely yours. Have fun. And if you have any questions, be sure to type them in. I'm happy to help throughout the class. Key takeaways. A full list of recommendations is available for supplies in the project and resources section of the class. These are suggestions, big caveat. Feel free to explore options and create a combination that works for you. If it's the water soluble and you're printing or your free handing, you're choosing yarn or floss. Make sure that it just speaks to you and what you want your piece to say about you. I'll seeg on the next lesson. 4. Pattern Transfer and Hoop Setup: This lesson, we'll learn about transferring patterns and setting up an embroidery hoop. There are various ways to transfer a pattern. We talked a little bit about it. With the supplies, you can transfer it to fabric with carbon paper or using a light board. You can also just stick it up against a window and trace it with sunlight too, if you prefer. You can simply free hand onto your garment with a heat as full pen. Once your pattern or design is transferred onto your fabric, you may need a hoop. It'll depend on the fabric. Some are easier to handle without the hoop. Use it as needed. What are we waiting for? Let's start stitching, right? And then you can see straight through there, way you don't have to cut it. You can literally just lay this over top. So if you're going to do a fabric and a hoop or something like a T shirt, this is a really easy way to do that. And then I'm literally going to use one of my heat erasable pens to draw over top of this. And this is our pattern. Like our sampler pattern, this really is just for practice. Don't worry about being perfect on this one. And then I can actually, I filled it in to show that it's going to be a satin stitch, but you can just outline the rectangle here. And same for the dots, these will be our French knots. This is the first sampler that will really just give us a good basis to do some straight stitches with a zigzag, some back stitches with the line satin stitches here, and then our French knots here. Alternatively, if you want something that's cute, this is a great one to put in like a fabric coop or on a T shirt pocket. This is just a little rainbow. Same idea, you can just trace over this. We have transferred our first pattern. This is going to be good for us to go into our practice. But first I want to show you a couple other ways that you can transfer onto your fabric. Another great way that, again, we can use the light board. You can also just think of this light board as a window if you want to. You could have taped the pattern onto your window and then put this overtop the fabric over top. Alternatively, you can use carbon paper. Carbon paper usually comes if you get a set that comes with little stylus that you can draw with. I'm going to pull one of those out. We're going to put the carbon right down onto the fabric. We'll go with this one. You're just going to lay your pattern on top, so you're going to have your fabric, your carbon paper, and then your pattern. We're simply going to press in and draw across these lines. All right? And there you can see it really faint when you turn off the light. It might be easier. You can see this created, just transferred a very light, almost like a pencil mark. I mean, essentially what it is a couple of different ways, this heat erasable pen, we can heat up and it will disappear. The carbon paper is very light, but sometimes you can't get it all the way off. Pick the right one for you. Now that we've got it onto a piece of fabric, let's put it into a hoop. I think I size all these for 55, which is my favorite hoop size. If you're going to do something on a wall, not too big, too small, easy to travel with. The hoop has this little tightening, get it here and then you're going to loosen that to release the inner hoop. Then you're going to put the inner hoop under your fabric, and then the larger hoop will go over top of it. So we've kind of sandwiched our fabric in there, and depending on how you're going to do your piece, if it's a piece of clothing, it really doesn't matter if you're going to leave it in the hoop. I would suggest going ahead and making sure that you've got it centered. This is just for practice, so I'm not going to be too particular about that right now. Okay. So now we've got this on here and I'm realizing that I did not show you the other way we can do this. What I did here is I printed out same files that are in your project and resources. These are just simply printed onto the actual stabilizer. Super easy. I learned in mind that I have to have like the fabric side up. Make sure you figure that out with your printer for now. I'm going to do the same thing with one of the sampler. So I'm just going to cut this out. This is by far my favorite because it's the easiest. You're literally going, I don't know if you can see this. We're going to peel this apart. Here we go. So you can see the backing peels off of here. Throw this away. Then you're literally just going to stick it on there. My son's favorite activities, stickers. And then the same thing where we're going to take the inner hoop, put it under, and then our outer hoop, and we're going to stick that over top. The great part about this one is you won't have to use heat, you won't have to try to wash or erase it. Literally, run this over some water, give it a good little massage, and it comes right off. This is an easy way if you don't want to draw, you don't have to trace, print it out, stick it on, you're good to go. Key takeaways, pick the transfer method that works best for you, even if that means just drawing onto your fabric. Using embroidery hoop is optional, but it can't be helpful for flexible fabrics. Fabric stabilizers can help structure fabric while you're stitching. Experiment and see which set up works best for you. I'll see you on the next lesson. 5. Learn the Basic Stitches: This lesson we'll be learning a few basic stitches guides with examples and diagrams are available under the project and resources section. Follow along as I show you step by step how to complete these foundational stitches. Now we are ready for our first stitch. We're going to start with this little zigzag here. This will be very similar to what we do in one of the lessons with the denim shorts. You're going to take it behind your hoop and simply push through and pull that right on up. Now the straight stitch, just literally straight stitch, we're just going to go straight back down. We're going to follow that line of the zigzag and go straight, I'm actually going to go down to this guy here and come back up and then go here and back. Then I will come back the other way. Fun to use. We'll be using them on the shorts and on a piece of denim. Now I'm going to come back through and do the other side. Okay, and then we're done. Next we're going to go through the line of the top line and this is where we're going to practice our back stitch. We're going to just then just choose a length, I'm thinking like a four inch and do your first straight stitch. So you're just going to go up and then back down. Then this time we are going to go about the same distance ahead of it. This is where I ended my last stitch. I'm going to go the same distance and push my needle up there. Then from there I'm going to pull it through. As I mentioned, you're going to go right back down into this hole. That is your first back stitch. Go ahead and pull that through. This is a great stitch when you're outlining. If you are going to be doing any hand lettering, like for letters, it's really fun to do the cursive hand lettering and use this stitch with it. It's also really fun for florals, if you're going to be doing an outline aesthetic. It's just really versatile. That's a great stitch. You'll use it everywhere. I will go ahead and finish these up, but you're literally going to keep going about the same distance over and over again, and then just coming back into the same hole where your most recent stitch ended. Okay, so we are wrapping up this backstitch, there we go. So we're going to start the satin stitch, which is going to be this bar here. Because I did print this, I have the full bar, but if you just did the outline, you're going to be starting from the corner of your rectangle and then just going parallel to that, back down on the other side. It feels like a straight stitch. The difference is we're going to continue doing that side by side by side. I'm going to come right next to that, as close as I can get and be parallel to my first stitch. And then directly across, go back down underneath. This is going to start creating a little color block. Okay, we're ready for our French knots. I've gotten a fresh thread. I finished this up. You can see I used the floss I'm using as like a ingredients. We've got a nice little break here. French knot is next. French knots take some time, but I promise they're worth it. They're beautiful. They're a great way to fill in shapes just to add little embellishments. So we're going to go ahead and start with this first one on the left. We can go ahead and pull your needle through from the back. Then we try to show you this. Best I can remember, there are diagrams and explanations in the project resources too, but I like to do two. I'll do it again. You're going to wrap once twice, then I'm going to pull this so it's perpendicular, and I'm going to keep it taut. And then I'm going to push my needle back through, basically right next to where we came out. And I'm going to move my thread here so I'll get caught a little bit harder to do well demonstrating, but I usually keep ahold of this thread through then. I still like to keep this to the side and then I'm going to let it go. We have our first not, you can play with the thickness of these, the tightness of them. Lots of variations as far as sizes. Let's see, you going to do 23. The more you wrap your needle, the larger your knot is going to be. Same for the floss. If you've used three strands versus six strands, that will have an impact as well. Sure, we pull that through key takeaways. Fax stitches are versatile, you can use them for lettering outlining and even filling in shapes. Satin stitches help easily and quickly fill shapes. French knots will always be hard relax. It'll take time to feel confident with them. I hope you enjoyed learning these. I'll see you in the next lesson. 6. Straight Stitch on Denim Shorts: This, Lisa will be using the straight stitch to dress up. Some denim shorts. Let's jump in. Welcome back. We are going to start this one with the straight stitch. So I have my needle threaded and you can see I actually went ahead and use that little rainbow sampler down here on the bottom. I'm liking this red pop on the white. That's what I'm going to use for this one. This is going to be really simple. Feel free as you're going through this to get more creative. There are so many ways you can dress this up. Whether you're doing straight stitches, you can do zigzags. Just think about where you want your pops of color. What parts of the piece that you're working on, the anatomy, can you play with with the sampler? I use this cuff to make the rainbow coming out of it. Just think of things like that that you might be able to play with right now. I'm going to do just this top pocket. I'm going to come behind and I'm not going to use the hoop. This is pretty sturdy. I think I may if I were using more like a legging or an athletic type of fabric with this denim, I don't think it's really necessary. I'm not going to use the hoop, but I am going to come straight through here, come up the back. Then I am going to go straight back down. Maybe just two stitches then go back through. And be careful, I just want to make sure that I'm going the pocket and through the whole I don't want to sew my pocket shed. Be careful if you are working on the pocket to inadvertently do that. Okay. So I've got my first straight stitch. I'm going to count. I'm using the same as I said about the anatomy of the piece. I'm actually going to use this to my advantage. So I'm going to go 12 and create kind of a pattern, But I can get it, so I'm going to use the same hole, pull that through. Then I'm going to go 12, push that right on back through. As I'm doing this, this is even going to spread out my stitches. I may go back through and add a stitch in between. Do this for a little bit and then I will catch up with you. After I finish my red. I've reached the end of my pocket here and I am going to show you another way to clip this off. I want to keep this pretty tight. I'm going to cut this and then separate because I use the full six here. Think about that too. How thick you want your thread to be. I used all six. I'm going to just cut this. I'm going to pull these apart. Probably do 3.3 here. I'm just going to take those and create a knot to finish it off. Then I'll keep it a little bit smoother instead of a big bulky no, I have my first stitches in my pocket. I'm liking this with the rainbow. But I think I'm going to go back through and add a second color. I'm going to do yellow. I have my new color threaded. I'm going to come back through here and just go in between my original red stitches, which will create another pattern. But it should be pretty easy just to go right in between head counted down two, so this will be on the one. Again, I'm trying to go with what's already here. I've got my second color in and I've decided to go a little rogue. I am liking these French knots outside of the ringle I have down here. I think I'm going to mimic that up here. I'm just going to go about middle. I'm just going to draw a few areas and I'm going to try to species evenly. I'm going to do it, let's just do I need to take those dots and make them French knots in the same pink color that I have down here. I have finished both of my pockets and added a little extra bonus with the French nuts. These could also be beats, would be fun. I'm feeling like I want to include these straight stitches in the teal color. So what I'm actually going to do, let's come over here and I'm going to add it to this little inner pocket key takeaways. Keeping in subtle is a great way to start. Simple stitches can add a splash of color and personality. But remember to get creative. Think about other ways to work with the existing stitches and play with more techniques. I'll see you in the next lesson. 7. Straight Stitch on Canvas Shoes: This lesson, we'll be using a straight stitch to give some color to a plain pair of canvas shoes. Let's jump in, we are back to our shoes. I went ahead and sketched out my points on here, so this one is done. You can see a little splash color around the eyelids. Then I had already marked this one. But I realized as I was doing the side and looking at the shoe that's already complete, I didn't have quite enough of my little ticks. So I'm going to go back through quickly and add just a few more to keep it consistent with what I already had going on. Give me just a minute, I'll rock through these. Okay, there we go. I'm all set on my guides here. Again, this is a heat erasable pen. I will be able to just blow dry this once it's done and all of these marks will be gone. I have my red threaded and ready to go again, we're going to be working with a straight stitch. This is exactly what we were doing on the shorts. I'm going to start feel free again, working with what I keep calling the anatomy of my piece. I'm working with the eyelets and just making these little sunburst which you can get more or less structured with minor, minor, more fence blats. If you want to go for something more symmetrical, definitely feel free to do so. I think I like mine a little more haphazard because it is hand done. I want to have that hand feel. I'm going to just scroll through here. We got our first stitch again, This takes a little more to push through than some other fabrics. I know that Joanne's and Michael sells canvas shoes. I got these on Amazon and they may be just a little too thick. Be careful when you're getting fabrics that it's something that you think you can work with. I think I must have built up my dexterity because this isn't as hard as it used to be. Again, we're just going to go around whatever pattern you've done, you could do zigzags, whatever feels good to you. You can even do some things on the side here if you wanted to do running straight stitches, whatever feels good to you, go for it. But for now I'm just going to go around this let and then switch colors and we'll keep making our way down the hot. I'm ready to go on P. I'm going to go to my next eyelid again, push through from the back, just straight back down. These are all straight stitches. I get my first stitch in, We're going to come back down and just repeat this over and over again. Now, you may have noticed that I'm going off script a little bit on some of my stitches. I'm trying to mix it up a little bit. I may not be on exactly my sketch marks, but again, because I made these marks with a heat erasable pen, I can make adjustments as I go and know that I can clear those out. We're done with the pink. I'm going to mark that off and get ready for the next color. I have pink done something I just learned. I started my pink up here because it's my beginning. No, a little too. I think it'll be okay, but it's close to the top. I would suggest starting a little bit further down. For my yellow, I am going to start here instead of at the top, if that makes sense. That's going to keep my knot from interfering. We're laying down the top of the canvas. We're just going to go around again, all straight stitches for our next color. We have one more and we'll be done back for our last color. So I have my tal threaded here. Let's start a little bit again. Starting towards the top, make sure my not, it's a little more hidden straight stitch around again, up through the back. Down through the front. Now ready for one of my favorite parts. We are going to erase our lines. Here we go, go. Simple as that. So those lines that were marked with our pen are now gone. Key takeaways. Varying stitch length can give more character to your simple compositions. Using the anatomy of the clothing or accessory is a fun way to spice things up. But continue to get creative, think about ways to work with the existing features of your shoe and play with more applications. I'll see you on the next lesson. 8. Backstitch on Sweatshirt: This lesson, we'll be using the backstitch to add hand lettering to a sweatshirt. Let's jump in again. I'm using the water soluble pattern, so I just printed it from the project and resources. The same file that's in there. I printed that onto my pattern and then applied it. Now for this one, I am going to use a hoop. I think we've got it again. You're going to put your inner hoop under your fabric and then we're going to put this outer hoop over top. I'm just trying to make sure that this is taught, which is why I'm fighting it. And then we're going to tight ma closed so it'll stay in place as we're stitching. You could put this in a different spot that's easier. The sleeve I've seen a lot or even like right at the. Cough. Those are very cute. Again, make this yours or feel free to tag on just as I am. We've done some pretty bright colors and I'm going to stay in the same palette. I think this one I'm going to go a little more subtle. I'm going to do the yellow on this beige cream sweatshirt. I'm going to go ahead and get this threaded. I'll meet you back here to start stitching. Okay. I have this threaded and back on my handy dandy needle minder. I'm going to come through the back. I was thinking about where I want to start. Honestly, you can start anywhere, but I find my lettering is the most natural when I start and follow the same path that I would if I were writing it. I'm actually going to start up here and I think I'm going to come down and loop around here. And then I'll come back to get the circle part of the. Let's do that. I'm going to through the back and I'm going to go straight through that stabilizer because again, this will just rinse away. We get to go right over top of that. Don't worry about it if you're totally covering it. If you're, if you're free handed something again, if you're using a heat erasable pen, you don't have to worry about that either. We're going to start with a straight stitch and then the back stitch let be practiced in the sampler. I've made my first stitch and I'm going to try to match that size. I'm going to go ahead of my first stitch ends here. And I'm going to come about that distance ahead of it, push through the back, through the front. And then I am going to go back through the same hole that I ended, that first stitch that is our back stitch. Okay. One more thing before I speed this up. Please, please please wash your fabrics before you start stitching. I'm thinking that as I'm working with the hoop, it will definitely relate what you've worked on if you haven't washed your fabrics, because you'll have new stitches and then your fabric will shrink and it's just a bad scenario. Please make sure that you wash your fabrics. A lot of times what I'm working on are things that have been well loved. So it's not as much of a concern, but if you're working on a new piece, or if you're doing fabric in a hoop, I would still recommend washing it, ironing it, making sure it's nice and flat. Let's speed this up, and I'll see you in a little bit. I've wrapped this part here, I'm going to come back up and do the circle before I move on to the rest of the word, I want to keep this clean. I think I'm going to tie this off. Now, let's see, on the back side of this, I'd like to keep this pretty tidy, especially because it's going to be sitting directly against my skin. I'm going to click here again. I'm going to start where I would naturally be writing, so I feel like I normally come around here, so I'm going to start there. Okay, Now we've got urge complete, so I'm going to continue this for the rest of the first word and I will catch up with you on the smiley face, seeing a bit. I have finished my first word of the patterns and it says good. I am actually really liking this ombraan here and the fact that I just landed for the smiley face with a darker yellow, I'm going to pick back up there. I'm just going to put in straight stitches. The smiley face is totally optional. I just thought it was fun after I hand lettered it, made that shape. I'm going to add these in. I'm coming through the back and straight back down for our straight stitch. I'm just going to do these side by side to make this little happy face. Now, I may come back to this later and do, we'll see what it looks like or may I just keep it all? This is an ombre, almost tone on tone. It's a little more subtle than what we've been working on. I'm getting to a point where I'm going to need to move my hoop, but I am going to finish this out quickly. Okay, back here, we're going to just start down the V and continue our backstitch. Okay, we just finish the last stitch, so I'm going to cut this off, wash off the stabilizer, but that's about it. So I've washed and dried this and now my water soluble stabilizer is gone, which just leaves the hand littering on the collar here. Let's see, the Mbre looks pretty cool. It's a little more tone on tone, kept it pretty tidy on the back side so you can see what it looks like on the inside another. We can't wait to see what you all made. Key takeaways. The back stitch is so versatile you'll literally use it everywhere. And being able to personalize your own clothes or even gifts for others is a great way to save on trends. Remember to get creative. The satin stitch is another great way to add lettering to initials and apparel. I'll see you on the next lesson. 9. Satin Stitches on Canvas Bag: And this lesson will be using satin stitches to create a fun design on a canvas pencil bag. Let's jump in. Welcome back. I am going to be working on a pencil bag for this lesson. I have a pack of these. They're from Amazon. There's a ton of canvas bags you can get. This would also work on a canvas tote. But today I'm going to be working on a pencil bag. This is a great gift too. If you have another artist in your life or someone who works office or travels quite a bit, this is a great gift as well. I started mine. Remember to use the transfer method that works for you, whether using carbon paper or a light board or the water soluble transfer that you've printed on. I printed on mine. This. I got a head start. You can see a little bit of what we're going to be doing. Like I said, use the transfer method that works for you. I use the water soluble stabilizer. I printed this and I just stuck it on. I've been using the same thread. I'm going to be using this teal again. I'm going to go ahead and get this threaded and I'm going to use my handy dandy needle miner for this one. Again, I'm not using a hoop for this. This one's pretty easy to handle without it. If you do need it or prefer it, feel free. Again, this is ultimately for you. Whatever works best. Whatever workflow, whatever materials, experiment, figure out what works for you. By all means you can follow along exactly as well. Now I have my needle threaded. When I don't need it, I will be putting it over here on my needle Er. But we're going to go through these two pieces here. I've done the same thing all across. We're just going to be finishing this up together. I'm going to start with this one again, this is the satin stitch. We did straight stitches in the last two lessons. In this lesson, we will be doing the straight stitch. This is going to come through the back, it's just like a straight stitch. I'm going to go down through here. Then that pretty much marks us for the rest of it. I am going to fill this shape by going right next to it, coming up, then as close as I can, sting parallel and directly across, right back down. And I'm going to do that to fill out the shape. Now the shoes, and the shorts, and the T, or the sweatshirt. We're not quite as long as this one. Please don't feel frustrated. This one will take more time, partly because of the pattern and also because of the type of stitch. So take your time, enjoy, and fill in your first shape. Okay, now if you get this stuck, I have done this 1,000 times working on this. If you get it stuck on the zipper, you really just have to loosen it and move it back around. It will come off, I promise. I've done it, like I said about 1,000 times working on this particular piece, this may be easier on an actual tote bag versus the pencil bag that our bag without the zipper. But I really do love this as a gift. I'm actually thinking I'm going to use this as my new embroidery pouch. So when I'm on the go, I can just throw my needles and my threads in here. Again, I'm just filling out the shape. I'm going side by side by side and just hitting this outline. Because I use the water soluble, I can just go straight over top of it. And then we're going to rinse this. When we're all done and the pattern will come off, we have our yellow ready to go. I'm going to come back and fill the center of the sky again. You can either go vertically or you could fill in horizontally. I think this one I may do vertically. It's super small. But just to give it a little contrast, since these are more horizontal, again, there's no right or wrong. It's more about how you want the flow to feel with your piece. Again, you could experiment. If you don't like it, you can always cut it and redo it. This one I think is going to fill in really fast this way. And then also again, I like the contrast, like having, I've done it here too, where I've gone horizontal, then I've gone vertical and just giving it more flow. Again, this is going to fill in really quickly. I've done it in a couple of places, like here, I've gone vertical with a horizontal, Done here. Play with what you like. I prefer that movement, but then I also have some that are, this one is in line with each other. Play around, see what you like. Can always change it later, or you could do another bag. I honestly think I might just leave it at those two stitches. Maybe one more of no, I think I'm going to leave it like that that filled in really quick. We're going to move to this last piece and then we will be all set with our pencil bag. Okay, since area had my yellow thread, I'm going to stick with that. And we're going to finish out this last shape. Actually, I think I may grip this a little bit differently. Again, if you need a hoop, feel free to grab one. I've found that this one has been easier for me to manipulate without the hoop, but whatever works best for you is fine. Okay. I just cut that down the center that at times helps me keep things even and keep it straight. But I am just filling in this outline. Again, the satin stitch going side by side to fill the space. Again, take your time. This one does take longer than some of the other projects we've been working on. Let's finish up our shape again, I'm going to start at the bottom. I make my first stitch is essentially a straight stitch. And then I'm going to follow that through side by side by side as a satin stitch to fill this shape. Okay, It is all finished, see different colors. Really enjoying how this ombre, the gradient thread worked. I'm getting different colors of yellows and the blues into the teal. It's nice. I'm going to take this needle minder off now for the fun stuff, we're going to take off this pattern. So stabilizer, we're going to take off this water soluble stabilizer. You can already see it's going to be pretty easy to get off even as a sticker, but let's go put it under some water then we're going to have to let our pencil bag dry, but we're almost done. I have also washed and dried this, just to get there was a little bit of bleeding from my thread that is all gone. Now again, we'll come back to this and adds more beating and embellishments. I wanted you to see progress. Key takeaways. The back stitch is quick and easy but still adds variety in combination with other stitches. Satin stitches are great to fill shapes. Think about other ways you can use these in your other projects. Remember, get creative. This is a perfect piece to think about, adding fabric, paint, and bees as well. I'll see you in the next lesson. 10. All Stitch Pattern on Ballcap: And this less, we'll be using all of our stitches to create a composition on a ball cap. Let's jump in so we're onto the pat, and this is a good thing to include all of our stitches. I've gotten a head start here and I do have my thread ready to go. I started with a satin stitch for the petals and all of my greenery. I'm using straight stitches to create the vein of the leaves. I have French knots in the pollen here. I'm using a back stitch here through some of the stems. Okay, so we're back with our hat. I have gotten a head start. I applied my soluble stabilizer here. I printed out the pattern. Again, this pattern is in the project and resources. You can print those out, you can transfer it with a light board or against the window, whatever works best for you. Also, feel free to draw straight onto your garment if you have your own design in mind. I place this on the side here. You can place it anywhere it would work on the front or even the back. I like the way that this followed the curving of the hat. I've decided to stick with this side of the hat again. I got started on this side, we'll work on this side together. On the right side, I have been using a hoop for this one. This is a three by three, you can do it without. I found it a little bit easier to have this structured for me while I was working. And I am pulling this, there's an inner part here, I'm pulling that down, it's a little too thick to get into the hoop with that. So just be mindful as you're getting your set up. Okay, you've got that on there. And again, use it as needed. You may be fine having a flexible. I just like to have a little more structure and just keeping it a bit more tap while I'm stitching. Start here. I'm going to start with the petals, and again, we are working on our satin stitch. Okay. I've gotten the first half done here and I'm going to come back to my center. I usually like to split my petals down the center first just to give myself a boundary, more of a guide. And I'm going to come back through and do this other half just to make sure that I'm staying symmetrical as much as possible. This is hand, no need for it to be perfect. But I do like to have a little bit more of a structure as I'm working. Okay, I have my second flower done, all the petals, and they mentioned we were going to go into the leaves, but this looks funny to me now without the center. So we're going to go ahead and fill in this pollen. What I've been doing for these are French knots. I typically start in the middle and then I work my way out and around against the French knot. You're going to come through the back, wrap it two to three times 12, actually two, then go back down basically right where you came out. Not the same hole, but really, really close to it. Pull that back through. Here's my first knot. I'm going to do the same thing I've done over here, and I'm just going to fill the space. I finished my pollen here, and I'm actually going to start with this stem, this floral piece here. I still using the full six of my floss. And I'm going to do a back stitch. I'm going to come through the back, then I'm going to go straight down the starting with a straight stitch. Then again, about the same distance to come up and then back through the same hole that I ended the previous stitch. And that will start my back stitch. I'm going to do that all the way through the stem. And then we'll add some French knots for these little floral pieces here. Now I have this stem here, complete with the back stitch. I'm going to fill these in with French knots. Again, we can do French knots here. You could also do a satin stitch. If you're not feeling totally comfortable with the French knot just yet, don't worry about it. Fill that in with a satin stitch. And same for these. You could also do a satin stitch for these if you don't want to do the French knot. I'm going to continue with the red. Then once we're done here, I'll move on to the upper part of the piece, they turned out to be more like a little berries. Now those are done. We are going to pop back up here to the top and finish these stems. Thinking, probably French nuts in here. You could also do a satin stitch, and then we'll finish off with our leaves. I've gotten to the point where I'm having trouble keeping my hoop on. I tried to adjust it, but I'm just getting a little too full here with my thread. I'm going to go free and just work on these stems here through then I will come up, sure, about equal distance through that same hole that I made to end my previous stitch. Continue that for the. Okay, so we have all of our stems done. I'm going to come to this very top leaf here, and I'm actually going to start this more of a backstitch. I'm going to come up through the top and I'm going to go right into the same hole where the stem. Then I'm going to fill this in with a satin stitch. Same for all of these leaves and then I'll show you the straight stitch for the vein. I finished out all of my leaves here. I'm going to come back through and add the straight stitch, and that's actually how I'm creating this vein. Look, on these other pieces, I did split this one. This is only three of the strands. I have it threaded my other half, there are six strands. I took three of them and put them on my needle. And I'm just going to come up through the center here of this leaf. Super simple straight stitch, just straight back down. And this layered look will give, it will look more like it has a vein. So it just adds a little more character layer just to me. It finishes out the floral. Okay, So we are about to wrap this up. I have my leaves done well, the veins that I wanted to put in and now I think I've decided that I'm going to fill these in with a satin stitch. Okay, Here it is, we're all done. Fill those out again. Think as you go through, if you want to follow this step by step, please feel free. But if you want to make the French knots, if you want to make the center satin stitches, however you want to change it up to make it same with the colors. Feel free with your color and your placement. Don't forget, you could put it on the front side. You could even put it over the back here. Whatever it is that feels good to you. Go for it. Make it yours. I am going to wash this or at least soak it so I can get this part off, and then I'll give you a quick little peek at it all. Nice and finished key takeaways. By combining all of our stitches, it gives the composition more texture and visual interest. Adding contrasting subjects to apparel like floral with a ball cap or even camo is a fun way to express personality and remember get creative. Think of a composition you like to create for an accessory and keep practicing. I'll see you in the next lesson. 11. Bonus! Paint and Bead Embellishments: That is time. In this lesson we're going to go back to our pencil bag and add some flare with paint and embellishments. It's totally optional, but it's a fun, I've got my beds ready, let's jump in. Right now, we're going to come back and do a few embellishments. You can see I heard have my paint pen in my hand. I've also got some beads here. I was deciding between just adding a little bit of texture with these, can't really see that too well, but it would just give it a little more dimension if I were to spread those out in between. But I'm more pop, so I'm going to go with this purple beat that I have here. I'm going to use my pen so we can put these anywhere, but I am going to use my paint marker to create poca dots through here. It'll serve as a backing for my bead, but also help me with placement. You could also just draw on here with the paint. Don't feel like you have to do something super tidy, and I'm just going to fill in some of these spaces. Feel free to get creative. You can do zig zags and curly cues and draw anything you want. Everything. You can use lots of colors. I really love these Posca markers, but I think you can use any. Think there's also fabric paint that you could use. I'm just going to use this because this is what I have and what I'm used to using. But I am going to slip a little cart in here to make sure it doesn't bleed through. So I'm going to go ahead and start marking where I want to put my leads. You'll see that made a nice little Now I'm okay. I will go through here and I will pick where I want to add beads, and otherwise I may leave a few, just a blue polka dots. Let's get this going. I already have my needle thread, a sneaker at that, I chose a color that no matter what bead I was going to use, I was going to use the same color as the canvas. That way I'm really focusing on the bead and not so much the thread. I think I definitely want to put one in this middle here. I'm going to come up through the back. Let my bead fall all the way down here. And then I'm going to come in right behind it. I want to stamp this up, I think. So let's pull this through there. We've got our first bead. We've got one right here. I'm going, I think I'm going to tie these off one by one just to keep it clean. Okay, ready for the next one? I'm going to try to space these out because I like this variation so I am going to keep some as just paint and others where I'm going to add a bead. And probably some of them where it's blood, a little bit like maybe I didn't make the best. I'll try to cover those. I'm going to come up through the fabric, this is essentially our straight stitch. I'm going to thread that, and then I'm just going to come straight back down. I am tying these off by each bead just to keep the back of them a little bit cleaner. You don't have to go to see a couple here. I'll go ahead and finish out my beads. This is officially done. I did end up mixing some beads, some paint. You can see in between there really simple polka dot, but to give it a little extra flare and different layers of dimension between the beads, the embroidery, and the paint. Think about what you'd like to do with your free, you can also just leave this as. But I thought this was a fun way to show you that you can add beating and paint to your clothes and accessory as well. Beating, I'd be careful with for anything you're washing a lot. But pencil bag was perfect for this key takeaways. Paint is a fun way to add more color and levels to your embroidery projects. Beads are a fun way to add dimension, but may not be the best for all pieces. Think of accessories that get washed a lot. Maybe not the best, but pencil bag perfect. Get creative. Think back on pieces we've already worked on or pieces that you want to work on. Make sure to include some paint and beads and just continue to grow your practice. I'll see you on the next lesson. 12. Final Thoughts: Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm so happy you were able to join me for class. Embroidery is a great way to breathe new life into your fabrics and it's just a great way to upcycle your clothes to be expressive and fun. Remember, embroidery is super adaptable. Get creative and think of ways to apply it to your existing pieces. Even what we've done in the class, or new accessories and compositions you want to work on. What adds with beads, paint different stitches. Just think about the combinations with your color combos, what makes it uniquely you? Be sure to post your final pieces in the project section and keep on stitching. I'd love to see more and more of them. Remember to use the hashtag Artsy Stitches and please review and follow me on skill share. I would love to hear your feedback and suggestions for additional classes. I'll see you in the next class.