Over the past weekend, I was searching through the archives here on Needle ‘n Thread, to find the answer an email:
Hi, Mary, I’m new to embroidery. I did some small kits and liked it and want to learn more…especially about what fabric and thread and making my embroidery look better… I came across your videos that are really helpful and they led me to your blog. As a beginner, there’s are a lot information out there to learn. What should I concentrate on for learning or what tips do you have to get started with?
Despite the explosion of needlework information online that’s happened over the past 20 years, I still get similar questions all the time. I would love to sit down with each person who contacts me, work with them, answer their questions in person, show them things they want to see in person, let them feel fabric and threads, explore ideas with them… but this is obviously a regretful impossibility!
To answer the “beginner tips” question, I wrote an article almost exactly ten years ago, with a concise list of tips to which I could direct beginners.
Now and then, it’s a good idea to re-visit these types of lists, tips, and explorations, whether you’re a beginner or not! You’d be surprised what tips you might pick up that you missed before, or what little reminders might spark a new idea for you!
The article that I wrote ten years ago is called 8 Embroidery Tips for Beignners, and you can read it here.
The tips in that article include how to transfer a design, how to prepare floss, choosing hoops or frames, information about needles, embroidery scissors, and fabric, the embroidery environment, and my personal top ten essential embroidery stitches for beginners to learn.
In the past ten years, I’ve written more on pretty all those topics, but the core information there is still pertinent and still useful! It is tried and true tried and true information that has withstood the test of time.
At the end of that article, I asked the wider Needle ‘n Thread community for additional input and received some good suggestions for additional topics – for example, the benefit of investing in good lighting and the advantages of starting with small projects.
Join the Conversation!
I’m sure we can all think of even more encouraging tips and ideas to help beginners find the path they want to follow for their own embroidery journey.
If you have additional tips, topic suggestions for beginners to explore, and so forth, leave a comment below! I’ll be compiling more tips and updating the original article soon, and I’d love to add input from your experience, too.
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