Embroidery Designs Guide

Have you ever searched high and low - in knitting shops, bookstores or on-line for a how-to-knit book written specifically for knitting enthusiasts who are just getting started, yet not found one that covers an array of topics about this wonderful craft?

We have a solution for you — My Knitting: The Basic Beginners Guide To Success by Louise Flat. This book helps you to create projects from scratch and get the exact required finish. What is important that this focuses on you as a home embroiderer. It is a practically guided learning book on knitting which takes you by the hand through till the end.

(There is also a 60-day unconditional risk-free money back guarantee. I never needed to try this option as yet).

I would be delighted to have your feedback on this!

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.

If you are into animal embroidery designs, you definitely should visit SecretsOf.com (click on “Everything for Embroidery” and then on “animals” from the left-side navigation menu). This is the largest collection of animals I have ever seen - even larger than all the zoos I have visited (and, mind you, I am an avid zoo-goer). The ones that I liked the most were the cuddlesome critters applique designs, including some cute giraffes, elephants, and horses.

Another place you may want to check out is ArtisticThreadWorks.com (use their search function to search for “animal”).

The best part in doing animal embroidery is the face since managing the expressions on the face can be quite exciting and can make or break the design. What are your views on animal embroidery designing? You can click on “Contact Us” at the bottom of this page to let me know.

Among many Indian embroidery designs, Chikan always has a special place in my heart. Not because of its beauty, but more so because of its history! The legend says that there was a particular king who had many wives and the youngest of wives found it difficult to draw his attention towards her. Somebody advised her to make an article in such a manner that it would be difficult to emulate. She made a cap with a peculiar stitch form of embroidery design. This had never been done before and the king was very happy. Tradition has it that the teaching was percolated down to the masses and this became famous as a form of hand embroidery art that would never leave a person penniless, since it appeared to sell easily. Even today, we have specialised workers who have mastered this art.

Chikan embroidery designing is a very laborious and time consuming task. (The craftsmen are trained for 15 to 20 years and sometimes it takes 10 to 15 days to make an outfit with hand embroidery as they fill in the designs with threads with detail work). This is why Chikan is so expensive as compared to machine embroidery. But it is worth it as you really do feel like a queen when you wear it - a Chikan suit is a regal treasure in any fashion connoisseur’s wardrobe! Really, the great thing about this form of embroidery is that it never goes out of fashion and it suits women of all ages. If you are going to invest in a few pairs of elegant wear, try adding chikan to your wardrobe. And before the men (in your heart and home) start feeling left out, they too can wear this form of embroidery - get a Chikan shirt for them!

Some excellent chikan embroidery designs can be viewed at Lucknow Chikan House.

I was surprised and happy to see an organisation called Self Employed Womens Association (SEWA, which means “service” in hindi). Its only objective is to improve the living standards of 5000 poverty stricken crafts women. This organisation has become internationally known for the famous Chikan products that it exports to various parts of the world.

In case you want to hear about the history of Lucknow and Lucknowi chikan, please see City Details.

I used to personally sell this through word of mouth a few years ago (when I had some time in my hands) and the sales were very quite exciting due to the unique touch that each particular form of embroidery had. The famous works of chikan are shadow, murri and taipchi.

I would be delighted to have your views on chikan and hand embroidery art and also maybe share some of your views on other unique forms of hand embroidery designs.

I just came across Embroidery DK when i was actually searching for something else. I don’t remember what is was specifically searching for — something to do with categories of embroidery designs. This site had a good look and feel and more important, it had subcategorised its basket of embroidery designs. Lot of free embroidery designs and for the rest, only 5 dollars for 4200 designs. The free embroidery designs can be downloaded easily and seemed okay to me. (one shouldn’t say anything bad about something that is free. That’s just not on). They also claim to have the worlds greatest subscription. By the way, they have a lot of designs using SHV, VIP, HUS, PES, SEW, JEF, PCS, DST, ART and XXX and you might just want to get some information on machine embroidery designs. Do let me know how you rate this site.

If you ask me which are the most amazing works of embroidery designs I have ever come across, the first that comes to my mind is Hunan Silk embroidery designs. Hunan embroidery form builds on inherited traditional techniques, in pursuit of perfect unity of embroidery technique and art design. Modern Hunan embroidery effects romantic charm and provides realistic expression of lifelike classic figures in vivid texture and brilliant color achievable only by the hand of the artisan. Hunan silk embroidery design is well known for rich colors comparable to an oil painting and realism comparable to photography. The unique technique of Hunan embroidery provides a means for threads of different colors to mix naturally, resulting in a very harmonious effect. There is no real comparison to this form of embroidery art.

Do let me know if you have come across any Hunan Silk embroidery design!

I was searching for some unusual embroidery designs in Google when I came across this interesting lady and her website. Her name is M. A. Klein and her works hang in many corporate, public and private collections including the Library of Congress, Washington, DC, and in churches and community buildings.

Klein used to design and manufacture needlecraft kits sold throughout the United States under the labels of Hanson Handcrafts, Monterey Bay Needleworks (Designs by Mary-Alice) and Sunbow, Inc. At the same time she was raising seven girls and one boy, all teenagers at that time!

Since 1979, she began to concentrate on one-of-a-kind textile wall hangings in mixed-media fiber collage which combine collage (applique), acrylic painting, embroidery (both hand and machine), and quilting. Occasionally she adds needleweaving, drawn threads, beads and such.

Quite an unique stuff, indeed!

I felt it a different experience to view her embroidery designs and other works of art, not only because of their one-of-a-kind design but because each of them seemed to convey some meaning that resonated from her heart. The designs seemed to be real life episodes experienced by Klein translated onto her embroidery works. Especially the Watering Hole, which currently hangs inside the Library of Congress, is a must see! So simple, yet so beautiful. Among other works that I especially liked were Religious Works, Story Time and People & Children.

What do you think about her site? Which of Klein’s embroidery designs are your favorites? Just click on the “Contact” link at the bottom of this page to send me your thoughts.

Having nothing better to do this morning, I searched for embroidery designs forums on Google. While many of the returned results were either paid embroidery design web sites or sites that are struggling to attract a wide enough audience to make their discussions more lively, one embroidery designs forum definitely got my attention.

With over 5,000 registered members and close to 70,000 posts, SewForum.com is one of the largest and most lively embroidery designs forums I have ever visited. Those of you who have prior experience with other discussion forums will find the site’s layout familiar, pleasant, and extremely user-friendly. All the posts are organized into sections and each section is further broken down into sub-categories.

The two most interesting sections are definitely the ‘Project Showcase’ and ‘SewForum.com’. As the name suggests, the ‘Project Showcase’ is where people show off their embroidery designs. As I write this, there are altogether 474 posts. Showing off, however, is not the only thing one can do inside the ‘Project Showcase’ as the other sub-category is devoted to free embroidery designs. There, you can download and use for free (as long as you observe the copyright) any of the hundreds of free embroidery designs.

The two most interesting sections are definitely the ‘Project Showcase’ and ‘SewForum.com’. As the name suggests, the ‘Project Showcase’ is where people show off their . As I write this, there are altogether 474 posts. Showing off, however, is not the only thing one can do inside the ‘Project Showcase’ as the other sub-category is devoted to free embroidery designs. There, you can download and use for free (as long as you observe the copyright) any of the .While ‘Project Showcase’ is definitely interesting, the real gold can be found in the ‘SewForum.com’ section. It is divided into eight sub-categories, including: Embroidery, Sewing, Knitting, Quilting, Serging, Crafting & Home Decor, Industrial, and Starting Your Own Business. Of course, for me personally, the most interesting is the Embroidery category and to say that I was positively surprised, is a gross understatement. Got a question about poor stitch quality? Not sure which stabilizer to use? What about metallic threads? If your question isn’t already answered in one of those 5,500+ posts, you can be sure that several of the active forum members will get back to you with their qualified advice within hours of you asking your question.