Design ideas and embroidery ideas don’t always work.

It’s true! They don’t! Sometimes, in fact, they’re utter failures.

It takes testing, time, and sometimes a good dose of frustration to arrive at a design, a technique, a thread, a stitch, or an embellishment that leads to a resounding, “Oh yes! That will work! Yay!”

Some people might think it takes a lot of waste, too.

It’s true that there are pieces of embroidery that I entirely scrap, because they won’t work out. It’s true that I might go through a spool or a skein of thread before I admit that, as much as I like the thread, it won’t work for this. It’s true that I might spend a whole afternoon – maybe even a whole day – maybe even three days! – on a particular design or working with a particular thread, before I say, “No. This Just Won’t Work.”

None of that is waste. It’s called process – more specifically, it’s called the learning process. And all of us go through it to some degree or another every time we sit down to stitch. Embroidery designers go through it pretty often – mostly so that you don’t have to!

I’ve been working through a collection of snowflakes, and some have worked out fine. Others have been a wash. Here’s a bit of process for you, in case you ever wonder what goes on when I’m exploring and testing embroidery designs and ideas.