Embroidery Love

I’m sure you’ve all heard me harping on about how I wanted to teach myself embroidery, and some of you may have also seen a few snaps of what I’ve been up to via my Instagram feed, but I wanted to share my progress so far. My first project was a Mexican Calavera skull, using this pattern from Polka & Bloom. I love the designs and bright and beautiful colour suggestions that Carina from Polka & Bloom uses in her patterns, and once you’ve mastered a few basics, her patterns are easy enough to follow (I taught myself the basics from Aneela Hooey’s book Little Stitches, and YouTube videos come in handy too!). I ended up giving this one away as a housewarming present to some friends, so will have to make another for myself soon!




The second pattern is also from Polka & Bloom, and is called May Flowers. Again, I love the design and Carina's colour suggestions, especially as I’m not yet confident enough to make my own colour choices (let alone designs). I’m not entirely happy with how my French knots are looking, but I’m working on my technique.


If you’re thinking of taking up this nanna hobby too, one tip I can share is to keep your embroidery threads organised in plastic sleeves. Not only does it help to keep things neat and tidy, but it’s especially useful if you plan on using the one pattern several times (as it saves you having to go through your stash to find a particular colour).

I’m not sure what I’m going to try next, but once my technique is better I'd love to try my hand at Carina's Tree of Life pattern, as well as this Kitschy Fruit pattern by June Craft and this Stitches Del Sol pattern by September House. Are there any other patterns you can recommend? It looks like I better keep practicing!