Hand Embroidery: Lettering & Text 1
Using lettering and text in hand embroidery can be a great way to make personalized needlework items. But sometimes it's difficult to know what types of stitches, threads, and stitching techniques to use when writing with your needle and thread. In this series of tutorials, we'll look at stitches and threads suitable for embroidered lettering, along with little tips and tricks for producing neat embroidered writing.
If you want to follow along with this series of hand embroidery tutorials, you're welcome to join me!
You can choose whatever text you wish. The idea here is to learn techniques and to get the feel of stitching lettering, so really, any text will work. If you are the type of person who likes to create "samplers" that can be used for decorative purposes, I suggest picking a quote, short poem, saying, Bible verse or something of that nature that you like, and setting it up in an attractive way using a variety of writing styles, so that you can practice using different stitching techniques and threads on the sampler.
For this series, I sat down with a piece of graph paper and pencil and wrote out a sentence using a variety of handwriting styles. Then, to expand the canvas a bit so that I have plenty of samples, I repeated words and filled out the space with lots of lettering.
Because the sentence covers all the letters used in the alphabet, I chose "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog." Before I started writing out the letters, I determined the space I wanted to fill, using my hoop as a gauge. I'm working with a 10" hoop to give plenty of room for the text, with extra room to work out some small tutorials on the side. You might want to work within a smaller space, and that's just fine.
After writing out the text in pencil, I traced over it with a micron pen so that the lines were clear and dark. Fine tipped Sharpies or micron pens are essential tools in my tool box - perfect for this step in any embroidery project.
I'm using a piece of white linen for this project. It is a plain weave (not even-weave) medium weight linen with a relatively close weave. You'll want to use a close-weave fabric - for practice, pretty much anything will do (though you'll find a natural fabric like cotton or linen easiest to work on).
Because the linen is light enough and the lettering on the paper is dark enough, I didn't need a window or light box to trace. I ironed the fabric smooth, laid it on top of the lettering, and traced the lettering onto the fabric with a regular pencil.
With the fabric hooped up, I picked out a few colors of DMC stranded cotton to start with. I'll also be using pearl cotton and floche, and any other threads that come to mind during the series here.
If you plan to join along with the stitching, you'll also want a variety of sizes of embroidery needles (crewel needles) in sizes 3 - 9 or 10. I'll be using size 10 (for tiny text with one thread), size 8, size 5 and probably a size 3 for pearl cotton #5.
So, now I'm ready to stitch! I'll begin with the word "The" (why not?) using a very basic stitch, with a focus on starting and ending threads and "traveling" with your threads so that they are invisible from the front.
If you want to follow along with this series of hand embroidery tutorials, you're welcome to join me!
You can choose whatever text you wish. The idea here is to learn techniques and to get the feel of stitching lettering, so really, any text will work. If you are the type of person who likes to create "samplers" that can be used for decorative purposes, I suggest picking a quote, short poem, saying, Bible verse or something of that nature that you like, and setting it up in an attractive way using a variety of writing styles, so that you can practice using different stitching techniques and threads on the sampler.
For this series, I sat down with a piece of graph paper and pencil and wrote out a sentence using a variety of handwriting styles. Then, to expand the canvas a bit so that I have plenty of samples, I repeated words and filled out the space with lots of lettering.
Because the sentence covers all the letters used in the alphabet, I chose "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog." Before I started writing out the letters, I determined the space I wanted to fill, using my hoop as a gauge. I'm working with a 10" hoop to give plenty of room for the text, with extra room to work out some small tutorials on the side. You might want to work within a smaller space, and that's just fine.
After writing out the text in pencil, I traced over it with a micron pen so that the lines were clear and dark. Fine tipped Sharpies or micron pens are essential tools in my tool box - perfect for this step in any embroidery project.
I'm using a piece of white linen for this project. It is a plain weave (not even-weave) medium weight linen with a relatively close weave. You'll want to use a close-weave fabric - for practice, pretty much anything will do (though you'll find a natural fabric like cotton or linen easiest to work on).
Because the linen is light enough and the lettering on the paper is dark enough, I didn't need a window or light box to trace. I ironed the fabric smooth, laid it on top of the lettering, and traced the lettering onto the fabric with a regular pencil.
With the fabric hooped up, I picked out a few colors of DMC stranded cotton to start with. I'll also be using pearl cotton and floche, and any other threads that come to mind during the series here.
If you plan to join along with the stitching, you'll also want a variety of sizes of embroidery needles (crewel needles) in sizes 3 - 9 or 10. I'll be using size 10 (for tiny text with one thread), size 8, size 5 and probably a size 3 for pearl cotton #5.
So, now I'm ready to stitch! I'll begin with the word "The" (why not?) using a very basic stitch, with a focus on starting and ending threads and "traveling" with your threads so that they are invisible from the front.
Labels: beginner embroidery, hand embroidered lettering, Hand embroidery stitches, needlework pictures, needlework tutorials, pictures
Posted By: Mary Corbet on Wednesday, October 14, 2009
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17 Comments:
Great tutorial and I hate to point it out but ther's no letter S! It should read 'The quick brown fox jumped over the slw lazy fox'. Sorry for being so anally retentive .....
Can't wait to get started! Now only if my handwriting was neater...
As always, I'm excited to see this series come together! I'm sure there's loads of us who will benefit from this. Thanks in advance!
Mary, there no 's'.... it should be 'jumps' instead of 'jumped'. "S" is one of my harder letters to do, is why I bring it up. sorry... you already have it lettered out etc... :(
Oh dear. I knew I should've checked that.
I'll add an S, never fear!! Thanks for bringing it to my attention!!
MC
Mary, what a super great idea! Could you include a pdf of your words...it would save us the time of coming up with out own. You're the best...thanks so much for your continued willingness to share your talents!
Aaahhh!!! Just like coming to the end of a favorite tv show--it's a real cliffhanger, Mary! :-) Thank you for your (always) concise "set-up" information. Can't wait to see your stitches. Echoing what one of the posters above has already said, you are a jewel of a person to share your knowledge this way. It must surely take a great deal of your time. I am appreciative of that and very grateful for your website. It has become the FIRST site I check every single day--before the news, the weather, anything! Thank you, dear one.
Oh! Dear this is not what I want to do but really knead to, It a pain for me to sew hand writing I hope I can learn from you and get it right at last. I have seen Chickens do better then my attempts in the past.
I enjoyed the long and short stitch lessons so much that I now have a book of Elizabethan embroidery and have started a larger project far beyond my experience. It started with detached buttonhole, so your video stitch lessons have been great. No time now for the lettering sampler, but I will eagerly read along and do send my thanks along with the rest of the stitching people.
Debbie S.
I really like your lettering...can we get a copy of your saying?
Another great tutorial Mary. I'm still working my way through the long and short tutorial so I can't start on this yet. But I will eventually. Thanks for this. You're the best!
Very nice project idea. I look forward to the outcome.
I agree with Figure5ingold and her sentiments of your sharing.
I look forward to following this tute.
I like your various styles of letters.
Aaaaaack! Sorry, folks - I didn't keep (or can't find - how's that for organization?) the paper I doodled the lettering on. I will "try" to make up another one, using the design on the fabric and get it up as soon as I can - but... it may be later next week before I have a chance!
Sorry about that! I didn't even think to scan it. And I'm sure I probably pitched it when I was cleaning up after setting up the project....
Best,
MC
This is going to be so helpful...thanks, Mary!
Great idea for a sampler and a tutorial. I really enjoy combining lettering with embroidery, and have done several commissioned pieces using quilting and embroidered names / sentiments. This one (framed or as a pillow) would make a lovely gift.
I don't know if you can change it now that you've written on your fabric, but all you need to do to get that S in there is change "jumped" to "jumps" and you've got all the letters.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge so freely, Mary! You do a great job of teaching. I LOVE your site!
annie
Mary,
I've not posted before, but love reading your inspirational and educational eletters.
For those of you who want a copy of Mary's Brown Fox lettering....just right click on the picture of the one she darkened with ink....save it to your computer....then print it of....I had to "shrink to fit", but it printed out beautifully, and Mary won't have to go to all the trouble of a PDF file for us.
I'm working on the L&S tutorial right now and really learning alot. My goal.... a Trish Burr project!!!
Carol
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