So I just finished my first embroidery piece using a Sublime Stitching pattern - yay! I am so happy with how it turned out. I really enjoyed working with this pattern and saw it as a fun design challenge. I taught myself a couple of new stitches from The Embroidery Stitch Bible (a must-have reference book if you like embroidery!) and geeked out at the craft store picking out tons of new embroidery floss in beautiful colors.
The pattern I used is from the lovely Roaring Twenties set if you'd like to get it for yourself. It's super-cute! These stitched examples here are from Sublime Stitching.What I love about these brilliant patterns is how easy they are to customize. They're just a guideline for the picture, but the colors & variety of stitches used are totally up to you. You could give a group of people the same pattern to work with & each one would come up with a different, equally awesome, finished piece. Compare & contrast my flapper girl with the one at left - quite different! They've added a beauty mark; I've added eyebrows & fill-in stitches to the feather. We've used very different color palettes, and I used a paisley fabric scrap that I happened to have hanging around.
Being a beginner at the whole embroidery thing though, I have a few questions for other stitchers out there:
How do you get rid of the hoop marks? Is there a trick to removing those? Or is it just a hazard of using thin fabric?
I steam ironed the bejeezus out of this fabric before framing it up, but the creases from the hoop are still faintly visible in the corners.
What's your favorite method for displaying your work? Do you typically frame a piece like this? Or do you just leave it in the hoop (eliminating the need to remove the hoop marks)?
I have seen this great Purl Bee tutorial for finishing a hoop piece, but haven't tried it yet. I'd love to learn more from those of you who've been embroidering for a while - please share your tips & tricks!
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