Make it your own embroidery class -- show your work

[Helen W.]

Pulled two color ways from my stash. Right now I am thinking my DMC floss that I have will look best with the gray. I am going to stitch together a practice piece,.
HelenW

[Helen W.]

Barbara T, Great idea to make a practice piece that has all the colors in the project so you can see how the thread look. HelenW

[Helen W.]

Pam, Great looking background I like the orange as an accent. When I clicked on the photo to enlarge it shows the whole picture larger. HelenW

[Helen W.]

Ellen, I don't know much about hand applique, and I like the way you stabilized the fray aspect of the
fabric, but I would worry that the stitches will draw up the silk and make it not lay flat. I think that might
be one of the reasons they put the stabilizer on the whole thing. You could always iron a piece of
Pellon 906 feather weight fusible stabilizer on the whole back of it. Or you might need to use a hoop.
Just a few thoughts. You could take a scrap if you have any left over and try a few stitches to see
if it is going to be a problem. HelenW

[Helen W.]

Carole B, So, sew excited that you are going to do this project. I am a hand embroidery want to be.
I figured this is a good time to get my feet wet. Not jumping in the deep end on this, just wanting to
learn enough to feel comfortable using it in projects. Hope to be like a sponge just absorbing all that I can learn. Please throw in all the fabulous tips and trick you know. This is going to be fun!!! HelenW

[Noella D.]

I haven’t recieved my order from TQS yet. The mail must be super slow right now, I ordered Nov. 17th! But I raided my stash and a friend searched in hers and we found some interesting fabrics! I Will try to piece something with this tomorrow morning. I will be more pictoral than abstract I guess, lol. Everyone who has posted seems to be doing well.

[Noella D.]

This is going to make a lovely piece!

[Barbara T.]

This is way out of my comfort zone but ready to give it a try. Made a little practice piece with scraps.

[Rebecca C.]

I started learning Brazilian embroidery when I was young... But we moved to a new town and had babies and a few money struggles as young families do. So never got back to it. I am looking forward to seeing your work- please do share.

[Jo Anne]

Here is the Bareroots book.

[Jo Anne]

Regarding embroidery reference books… I have a few that I like to use. Here are 2: Bareroots, a project book, has a pocket on each page with a pattern inserted and is then followed with explanation/illustrations of stitches used. The other one I use that I periodically check out online from my library is Stitch Encyclopedia. It has a plethora of beautifully illustrated stitches.

[Irene A.]

Got out my Dupioni silk stash and went to work. It just happened as I worked along. This is what I came up with for my background piece. Plan to put some Brazilian embroidery work on it. Examples of my Brazilian embroidery are shown.

[Toni J.]

[Ellen L.]

My background is prepped and ready to go. I had plenty of stablilzer and no problems ironing it on. I went with a fairly simple background that spreads the color around. I love the diversity of color. Just sewing these pieces together, it seemed that the seam allowances were fraying fast. I was concerned that while handling the piece it would continue to fray. I used my scraps of stabilizer and put another piece over each seam. I also turned the edge and used a zigzag stitch to help avoid frays at the edge.

There is a fold line in each piece that I couldn't press out, but I may not have had the iron hot enough. I think once I have some embroidery on it, the fold lines won't be as obvious. At least I hope so.

[Toni J.]

I had a problem with the fabric backing prep. I then sandwiched the silk, prep, between parchment paper and dry ironed. Worked great.