Embroidery Designs Guide

To start with, what exactly is beadweaving : “To form embroidered designs by combining various elements into a connected whole adding beads at regular intervals is known as beadweaving”. Check the diagram at your side to get some understanding of the same.
If you want to go through a simple project book with lots of pictures, I recommend the book by Ann Benson : Beadweaving: New Needle Techniques & Original Designs.

Benson focuses on converting craft into wearable art. She uses black-and-white diagrams to clarify procedures and introduces two types of beadwork–needle weaving, in which beads are threaded together, and card stitching, in which beads are sewn directly on to a backing of construction paper or lightweight cardboard. More than 40 amazing projects–mostly jewelry and decorative accessories–are included, with graphed or gridded patterns, step-by-step instructions, and a complete list of materials right down to bead size and color.

Another book worth noting in this art is The Complete Guide to Traditional Native American Beadwork: A Definitive Study of Authentic Tools, Materials, Techniques, and Styles by Joel Monture. This book offers stunning photos and a good section on traditional color use which together could give one a good starting point for one’s own creations. Joel is a professor of traditional arts at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. His book documents not only native American beadwork techniques, but the tedious methods of leather preparation that are necessary prior to beading.

This art is truly amazing! What is punch needlework embroidery? Punch needle stitchery is the technique of ironing a transfer pattern onto cotton/polyester fabric and then punching yarn, floss or ribbon into the fabric to fill design areas with color. There are special needles used for this purpose which are sharp, stainless steel hollow tubes (in varying sizes) with an eye, inserted into a comfort-fit handle. They come in various shapes like flat, looped, contoured or sculpted depending on your requirement. The end result is a breathtaking display of dramatic textures and combinations.

Take a look at the embroidery design of Jeffrey Lansing beside this post. The warrior literally stands out on the piece of frame and a lot of emphasis has been given to the contours of the face and headband. Some more designs could be found at Punch Projects.

Happy punching, friends!

A friendly acquaintance drew my attention to this beautiful needlepoint tapestry website - Friendly Services. An excellent and wide range of embroidery designs in various categories ranging from crewel embroidery to cats, horses, christmas designs and other best sellers. (The name of the website is misleading though!)

Tapestry is an ancient art. Tradition has it that in Greek mythology, Penelope awaited her husband Ulysses while weaving tapestries. The tapestries were not only decorative, but played a practical role in covering the walls of huge castles. Medieval cartoon-painters and weavers produced the very same masterpieces that are shown on this web site. The ones I liked best were the best sellers.

Tapestry kits contain the canvas printed in full colour, yarn, needle, and instructions. The 100% cotton canvas is a double weave antique or white canvas called Old Penelope or White Penelope - the name coined from the mythological tale. The yarn is 100% pure wool. The kits may be stitched in either half-cross or tent stitch.

The goal of Friendly Services is to provide you with the best quality in hand craft products.

This is truly sparkling. Ordinary embroidery design sets transformed into a special glory through a sparkling template. Visit Embroidery.com for further details. This concept is courtesy “Adorable Ideas” whose unique contribution to the world of embroidery is well appreciated. Each embroidery design set contains the embroidery design file (which can be sewn using your embroidery machine), one sparkle template matching the particular design (made of rhinestones) and a CD with instructions and step by step demonstration video. Once you feel that the embroidery design sewn is perfect, you could then use the sparkle template, since there is only one template per set. (More templates can be purchased if necessary.) The design is machine washable. Rhinestones sparkle when light falls on it. They can be used on most fabrics except nylon, velvet, acrylic, leather and vinyl.

Amongst the sample sparkle embroidery designs - the goldfish, oops-a-daisy and movie star are really well done. To start this project, I would suggest the “Sparkling Sun and Palm trees”. Simple yet attractive. This is sized 4.24″ by 4.54″ and contains 4485 stitches. This is available in ART, CND, DST, EMB, EXP, HUS, JEF, PCM, PCS, PES VIP AND XXX formats. (to know more about formats, view PC Machine embroidery). The main color stops used are grill orange, french toast, olive drab and irish green.

This embroidery website has been haunting me for quite some time and I couldn’t resist writing about it - Embroidery Artwork. The classic hand embroidered Hunan silk embroidery designs also called as Magic Art is a perfect union of embroidery designing and art. The threads used are made of silk, floss or delicate cotton thread depending on the aspect of needlework. Embroidery artisans, usually more than one, work for several months in unison to create one design! The final output as you can see from the example next to this post - is breathtaking. This is indeed a private collectors fantasy. Just like the portrait of Diana, (this one in particular generally takes one year to complete after an order is placed) embroidery portraits for customers can be done on a made-to-order basis. Apart from this, the website also portrays sceneries, lakes, flowers and meadows in all its splendour.

This is definitely among the best in the collection of embroidery designs web sites.

For all lovers of hand and silk embroidery, you should not miss this. Kasooti is an ancient art form of hand embroidery credited to the Lambani tribes, the gypsies of India. The process is as follows: Initially the silk cloth to be hand embroidered is decorated with bits of cut mirror, costume jewellery and coins. Then the intricate stitching of Kasooti comes into play. The stitches are called Ele, Mente, Negi, Gavanthe and Marige. The designs are in tune with nature - flowers and creepers interwoven with animals such as cows, parrots, peacocks. The choice of the needles and the coloured threads is critical for the success of this embroidered product. Most of these designs are mirrored designs - that is, the left half would be a mirror image of the right half. You can view quite a few examples at the above mentioned site.

Kasooti embroidery is very useful for bridal trousseau, embroidered sarees (traditional dress of Indian women), bedsheets, cushions, wallhangings and table mats.

Forbidden Stitch also known as the Seed Stitch or Blind Stitch is a Chinese form of hand embroidery, where the embroidery designs are done through small knots made on the fabric surface by wrapping a heavy embroidery thread, usually silk floss, around a needle and then stitching it down. This is an ancient form of embroidery and early relics of this stitch have been found in an Eastern Han tomb at Nuoyinwula, Outer Mongolia and also in Linzi, Shandong Province. If you notice the example next to this post, each knot is separate, looped once around the needle, fairly flat and closed and a series of rows of such knots would form the embroidery design. Tough time-consuming work indeed!

Why the name “Forbidden Stitch”? - The story goes that this work was so fine, that continuously working on a design for hours at a stretch led to eyestrain and hence this form of stitching was forbidden in the past in China. This explains the fact that this is also called “blind stitch”. The second story, which also seems authentic and more straightforward, is that this originated in the Forbidden City of China and hence the name was coined after the city.

You could go through these couple of resources - the first gives the technique of forbidden stitches with images - Marlamallett and the second gives some practical examples of embroidered shirts - Vintage Textile.

But careful while experimenting - it is forbidden

After receiving a few requests on free embroidery design software, we did some researching on this subject. We are happy to announce that we have found a good free embroidery software that would convert your favourite photographs into embroidery designs. It is free to download at Pixel Hobby. Once you upload the photograph - almost immediately the software develops the embroidery design along with the colour details. You could then click on the print option which gives the details of the base plates, color codes and pixels. Finally you have an option for ordering the necessary base plates and threads required for stitching the particular design.

I tried it myself for a photograph of my twin children Keshav and Madhav - the output of which you see alongside this post. They came out quite well and distinct after choosing 4 baseplates for each axis. The total number of colours necessary for this embroidery design is 70 with 275 pixel squares. Let me know once you experiment on this. One could actually embroider one’s favourite photos through this software. We could have another section on free embroidery designs through this exercise.

You might recollect ‘Diana’ in the magic of silk embroidery at the hand embroidery designs page.

Welcome to Suzhou - the silk hand embroidery city of China - also known as the paradise on Earth. This town is studded with wonderful gardens, soft Suzhou accent, delicious Suzhou food and of course - amazing silk double-sided embroidery art. Check out some samples at SuEmbroidery.com. Most silk hand embroidery products find a good export market. Su embroidery is well-known for its neat stitches, elegant colors and fine quality. The methods applied in producing embroidery artworks include crisscrossing, mixing, netting, scattering and many unique secret methods.

History of Su Embroidery - Chinese Suzhou embroidery (Su embroidery for short) is the most famous hand embroidery art (history exceeding 2000 years) among all embroideries in China. It is said that after the Song Dynasty (about 960 AD), every family in Suzhou bred silkworms and made hand embroidery. Even now many people live by embroidering. For example, Zhenhu, a small town has close to 10,000 embroidery craftswomen.

# Su embroidery is sorted by theme: Silk hand embroidery animal
# Silk hand embroidery portrait
# Silk hand embroidery landscape
# Silk hand embroidery flower

There are two varieties of Su embroidery based on techniques applied: single sided embroidery, double sided embroidery of different colors. Double sided embroidery - the specific style of Su embroidery can be appreciated from both sides. Pictures look exactly the same and wonderful on both the sides. Some complex double sided embroideries can have two totally different pictures on the two sides of the silk embroidery. For this, special ways are used in knitting instead of knotting. The end of the silk thread is invisible. It is knitted in the right angle without piercing the other side. Both sides would then present the same excellent effect.

Take the example of the farm lady with chickens above this post. What impresses one is the depth of the embroidery art, the ease at which the emotions of the lady are portrayed and finally the clarity of the features of the birds and trees. Truly amazing!

Su embroidery furnishings include scarves, curtains, handkerchiefs, ladies clothes, tablecloths, pillow covers, cushion covers, wall hangings.

If you recollect, I had written about the amazing silk embroidery designs, where the threads were so fine that the final design looked like a photograph. I now introduce you to the impressionist photograph or sketch design done through your embroidery machine. This is called the photo-stitch technique and is reminiscent of pencil or crayon sketches, rather than embroidery. If you take the example of this girl, the entire design is done in 10-12 layers of stitches. The first couple of layers are just the skin on her face. The next few would focus on features like eyes, nose and ears. Then would come the finishing touches to the hair, making the entire embroidery design more dense. Each of these layers are stitched one after the other. You can liken it to a far away blurred image slowly focusing and coming into the foreground. The final output looks awesome and complex, but it is actually done in 12 easy layers. (like they say, the only way to chew an elephant is to bite it into small pieces)

Click here for free tutorials on the photo-stitch design. Details of choice of the right fabric, stabilizer and method of hooping is elaborately described here. For this particular girl, the size of the hoop is 89.0 x 152.7 mm, the total number of stitches is 45001 and there are 12 colors used. This photo-stitch embroidery design can be freely downloaded using *.ART *.DST *.HUS *.JEF *.PES *.VIP *.XXX and the information on machine embroidery would come in handy here.