{embroidery} Not today!

I have something different to share today and I'm very excited about it: my first proper embroidery project. I did a bit of cross stitching when I was young and I have attempted hand embroidery in the past. But I've never finished anything other than a few cross stitch accents on tea towels - which I never use because I don't want to ruin them! 😂 I've always found embroidery beautiful but, for some reason, it just never grabbed me, even though I've tried to get into it numerous times. Last year I even bought a couple of kits from Oh Sew Bootiful. I started their beginner sampler earlier this year but it remained unfinished. Until this week!

A few weeks ago, my best friend - who could never be arsed with any craft has never been crafty, despite her mum being an amazing crocheter and the one who taught me how to crochet - has really gotten into hand embroidery. She's sent me photos of her projects, posted stuff online and I decided I wanted to have a go as well. 

I watched lots of youtube videos to refresh my memory of how to do it. Massive shout out to Luluca, my bestie, who pointed my to Clube do Bordado. They have great and informative videos, and the girls are really funny. Yes, they're in Portuguese but there are subtitles in English. By far, the best videos of the TONNES I watched this week.

Feeling suddenly very inspired, I got down to it. I wanted a sampler, so I could practise lots of different stitches but I didn't want a boring one. Also, I wanted lettering, some kind of message. All the samplers I could find looked too easy and very boring to me, so I decided to design my own. I created the design by hand and transferred it to a scrap of fabric. I already had a load of embroidery floss knocking around, some needles and a few hoops. It was a very random organic process.

I learned so much with this initial project. There's so much more to embroidery than I had ever thought. I can see progress when I look at the things I stitched first and there are lots of things I will do differently next time. I'm very proud of my little hoop, which is hanging proudly above my sewing machine, along with the sampler I actually managed to finish this week.

I've been teaching myself how to use Inkscape so I can create other designs more easily. In fact, I was able to digitise this original design and I've already created something I'll be stitching as a Christmas present... Shhhh!