Embroidery Pattern: Pretty Daisies
Here's a simple flower embroidery pattern. The design is suitable for different line stitches. It could be outlined in one color, or several colors. This would be a good pattern for beginners to get some practice outlining around curves. Try a variety of line stitches - stem stitch, couching, whipped back stitch or running stitch - to create a textured look, as well as to get in some good practice on a pretty pattern. This would look nice centered in the middle of a hand towel. Any other ideas on how to use it? Feel free to share!
Click on the design for a larger image. Then right click on the larger image to save it to your desktop.
Do you like this pattern? Would you like to see more of the same? What types of patterns are you particularly interested in? Please let me know!
For more hand embroidery patterns, please click here.
Click here to read the whole post & comments.
Click on the design for a larger image. Then right click on the larger image to save it to your desktop.
Do you like this pattern? Would you like to see more of the same? What types of patterns are you particularly interested in? Please let me know!
For more hand embroidery patterns, please click here.
Click here to read the whole post & comments.
Posted By: Mary Corbet on Saturday, July 29, 2006
PermaLink | 3 comments | Click to Comment
Share this
File-A-Floss System: I haven’t tried this one yet, personally, but I’ve read some reviews on it. If anyone has anything particular to add about it, I’d love to hear from you! The concept: a very pretty box (there are apparently five designs to choose from), in which brass rods are extended. Your floss goes in bags with hanger tabs (? I think?) on which you can write the number, and then these are hung on the brass rods. This looks like a good system, but according to customers who have bought it, it has one particular drawback, which is that the individual boxes cannot hold more than 100 skeins of floss. If you’re like me, your stash is probably considerably larger than that. BUT – think about it! – the boxes are relatively small, so if they hold 100 skeins of floss in such a small space, and look good to boot, I’d think that would be ok. You’d have to invest in a few boxes if you have a large stash. And you’d probably have to label the outside of the boxes into some sort of category. The other drawback with this one from what I can see is that it doesn’t allow for other types of threads aside from the regular skeins of DMC-type embroidery floss. If you have, then, thread on spools (some of the Au Ver a Soie silks come on spools), this probably wouldn’t be the best storage system. One thing this system has over every other idea for organization that I’ve seen is that it has “looks” appeal – arranged on a shelf, the boxes would be rather nice-looking.
EZ Bobs: Now, I like these little guys. I use them for hand-held kumihimo disks. The concept: these are donut-shaped plastic bobbins. There’s a hole in the middle of them, and the outside, when opened, is shaped something like a yo-yo. You wind your thread around the core, and turn the plastic in, so that it closes and covers up the thread. Of course, you leave a little tail hanging out. They aren’t a bad idea for thread, and if you had a permanent workspace and a doweled cabinet to put them in, they might be a neat idea. BUT… (there’s always a but, isn’t there?) I’m not sure I’d like the idea of feeding good threads through them when they’re closed. I haven’t had any problems with thread snagging, though, so perhaps it wouldn’t make a difference. The other drawback is that you can’t see the thread, really, when they are closed (except for the little tail). You can write on the outside of the bobbin with a permanent marker to indicate the color, but then you’re stuck using that bobbin for that color. Oh – another neat thing – the individual bobbins lock together when you stack them. Again, this is something that might be great for when you’re working on an individual project. I can’t see storing a whole stash of thread on them, especially when you’ve got specialty threads and such to store as well.
Buttonhole Stitch: When you use the buttonhole stitch, you want the rope-like edge created by the stitch to line the outside of whatever design you are doing. So if your border is on the base of your design, your stitches will be worked in the direction shown in the diagram on the left here. You begin at the base of the design, at A. Your needle comes up from the back of the fabric, and goes down at B. When you bring your needle back up at C, make sure the working thread is underneath your needle, as shown. You can space your stitches out, depending on the effect you want. If you're planning on cutting around the area stitched (as you would with cutwork or with a scalloped edge), you would keep your stitches right next to each other. In other techniques, you can spread your stitches out to create a different "look" (for example, as a decorative edging in crazy quilting - see below). To finish, you anchor the thread by taking your needle down over the loop you formed when you came up in front of the needle at C. Basically, you're just going to go down right next to C, and anchor your working thread.
Buttonhole Wheels or Eyelets: Here, the buttonhole stitch is being worked around in a circular shape. This is effective in white work, when creating eyelets (shapes that have the center cut away), and it is equally effective in surface embroidery for stitching little flowers and such. You can space your stitches farther apart for flowers and such, but with eyelets in cutwork, you want to keep them close. Below is another example of how buttonhole wheels can be used. The example below was taken from one of my student's 
Buttonhole Shading: You can also use the buttonhole stitch as a filling stitch. By changing the shade of your thread as you progress, you can achieve a nice "needle-painted" effect. However, the buttonhole stitch, because of that twisted, rope-like edge, will be slightly thicker than your typical long & short stitch. It also requires being worked in straight rows, whereas, in long & short stitch, there's more flexibility. Notice in the diagram on the left that the stitch is being worked over a laid thread. This helps keep the "padding" more consistent, and also helps keep your rows nice and straight. When using the buttonhole stitch to fill an area like this, the effect is rather more stylized and formal. The finer the thread you use, the finer the the results.
Detached Buttonhole Filling: Common in needle lace, this filling technique requires working a base running stitches along the edge of your design. Before working the buttonhole filling, you run a laid thread through the running stitches from side to side. Then you work your buttonholes over this thread, without passing through the fabric. For the next row of stitches, you use the previous row as your base, and stitch through it. By laying a long thread from side to side just below each row of buttonholes, you allow yourself to go back to the left side of the area and work from left to right. It's not required, though, that you do this - you can work each row of buttonholes back and forth, without laying anything but the initial thread. Your filled area will be anchored to the running stitches along the side (pass through them with your last buttonhole in a row), and, when you're finished filling in the design, you can cut away the fabric behind if you wish. If you do this, it is recommended that you stitch the edge of the design either with overcast stitching, or with an buttonhole edge as shown above in the cutwork explanation.
Seed Stitch: Given the fact that seed stitch is merely the filling of a space with random straight stitches, it would seem as if it were one of the easiest stitches to execute. But there's a hitch to the seed stitch: for a really good-looking effect, you have to keep your stitches uniform in size. Random seed stitches that vary in size end up looking a bit juvenile. Try to make all your straight stitches (seeding) small, uniform in size, and evenly spaced across the area you are filling.
Stem Stitch Filling or Stem Stitch Shading: if you've already worked the 
Fishbone Stitch: Here's a good stitch to start with, when it comes to filling smaller shapes such as leaves and flower petals. The advantage of fishbone stitch is that it really looks like a leaf when complet, and you don't have to do anything "extra" to add, for example, the spine down the middle of the leaf. If you want a perfectly smooth leaf, though, you would use satin stitch instead of fishbone. The trick to a good fishbone stitched leaf is to draw a line in the middle of the leaf shape to use as a guide. You want to keep your edges smooth, too.
Flat Stitch: This is a lot like the fishbone stitch, but instead of stitching over one center line, you draw two lines just off the center, and take your needle down on either one of them. The flat stitch is also known as the Croatian stitch or the Croatian flat stitch. Again, it solidly fills a shape, forming an overlap in your stitches so that a kind of spine runs down th emiddle of the shape. Once executed, it looks almost identical to the fishbone, except it doesn't come to a point. Flat stitch is a good way to fill in circular flower petals.
Detached Chain - aka "lazy daisy" stitch: This stitch is great for little accent flower petals and leaves. It can also be used as an outline stitch, when stitches in a line with regular spaces between the stitches. As a very loose or light filling, you could work lines of detached chains in a kind of alternating "brick" pattern.
French knot: Perhaps this is the most "common" knot used in surface embroidery. It's uses range from the single center of a little flower (above) to a dense, textured filling. (See a great sample of textured filling 
Fly Stitch: This stitch can be used as individual stitches for accents and for loose filling. It can also be worked in horizontal or vertical rows, as an edging (in crazy quilting, sampers, and whatnot). Below, you can see an example of it used in a horizontal row.
