PROJECT

Art Pillow

This project teaches you how to transfer a favorite drawing to a piece of fabric and then copy it with floss. We like to embroider a pillowcase, because then we get to see our handiwork every night (and morning)! But you can also embroider a dish towel — which makes a great gift for someone — an old-fashioned hanky, or even a button-down shirt.

What You Need

How You Make It

  1. 1. Transfer your drawing and/or cursive writing to your fabric using one of the methods described in How to Transfer Your Drawing.

    Next, if you’re using an embroidery hoop, stretch the fabric across the smaller hoop (see How to Use an Embroidery Hoop), leaving a few inches all around. Then fit the adjustable hoop on top and tighten the screw.

  2. 2. If there are parts of your design that need filling in, do that first. (If you don’t plan to fill in your design, skip to step 3.) Cut an arm’s length of embroidery floss. Thread your needle (see Thread Your Needle) and knot the end (see Knot Your Thread). Push the needle up from the back of the fabric to the front, and use Satin Stitch to fill in the design.
  3. 3. Stitch the shape outlines and writing. Cut an arm’s length of embroidery floss and separate it into two three-thread strands (see How to Separate Your Floss). Thread your needle with one of the three-strand lengths (see Thread Your Needle) and knot the end (see Knot Your Thread).

    Push the needle up from the back of the fabric to the front and use the backstitch to follow the lines of your drawing (or the outline, if you filled it in with satin stitch first and want to emphasize the shape).

    For some designs, you’ll likely need to tie your floss off on the back of the fabric at various points and go back to pick up parts of the drawing you missed. You can also hop from one place to the other on the back of the fabric, being careful not to pull your thread too tight.

    As you finish stitching your design, be sure to tie off your floss on the back and snip it.

How to

Write with Thread

Are you wondering why they bothered teaching you cursive in school? It’s to make embroidering easier! Okay, that’s not why, but it really does help with embroidery.

To embroider printed words, you have to stop and start between each letter, but to embroider words in cursive, you can follow them with your backstitch exactly the same way you wrote them. Handy, right?

For nice, clear writing, keep your thread thin (try sewing with three or four strands) and your stitches small, especially when you’re going around curves. And don’t worry if you were spared cursive in school — just try to connect your letters in a graceful way.

Tip

Crisp Backstitch

When using embroidery floss, we find that backstitched lines come out most sharply if you stitch with only three or four strands, rather than all six. (See Separate Your Floss).

How to

Transfer Your Drawing

You’ve got the perfect drawing for your embroidery project! Only how do you get it onto the fabric? There are two ways. Both options work best if you start by taping your fabric to a table, pulling it slightly to make the surface tight.

Use carbon transfer paper, which is sold at fabric shops. It has a layer of carbon (which kind of looks like pencil dust, but it might be blue, white, or black) on one side. With the drawing side on top and the carbon side touching the fabric, lay the carbon paper between your drawing and the fabric and pin all three layers together. Then trace the lines of your drawing with a dull pencil or, if you don’t want to add extra marks to your drawing, a knitting needle.

The pressure of your pencil or needle will transfer carbon lines onto your fabric, which you can then embroider. (The carbon will likely rub off as you work. If your lines start disappearing before you’re ready, go back over them with pencil.)

You can also make a version of carbon paper yourself. Use a regular graphite pencil to color over the entire back side of the page your drawing is on. (Use a photocopy of the drawing if you don’t want to get pencil all over the original.) With your original drawing facing up, tape it to the fabric.

Trace the lines of the drawing with a dull pencil, pressing down firmly. Wherever you press, the graphite on the back of the drawing will transfer onto the fabric. Don’t worry! Those marks will wash out of the fabric.

Stitched Selfie

Turn your old-fashioned craft toward a newfangled purpose with a little stitched self-portrait. To embroider a picture of yourself, follow the directions for the Art Pillow, but start by transferring a drawing or photograph of yourself.

If you have a line drawing that you already like, you’re ready to go — just resize it on a copy machine, if you want to. Otherwise, you can start with a photograph and use an image-editing program like Photoshop or a website or app to turn it into a line drawing that you can print and then transfer to your fabric. (At the time of this writing, there were several free options online for this. Try searching online for picture stencil maker to see what’s available.)

For Fun

Fabric Hack

If you have fabric, sheets, or clothing printed with flowers, a woodland scene, dots, geometric shapes, or anything else, you can use the pattern to practice your embroidery. Or you can use your embroidery to fancy up the pattern! Start by securing the fabric in your embroidery hoop (see How to Use an Embroidery Hoop) if you like. Then try any one, or all, of these approaches:

Trace the design. Use embroidery floss and whatever stitch you like to trace around the shapes or to run up and down the lines of a plaid shirt. You can then fill your shapes in or not.

Add to the design. Maybe your plain ocean waves need a couple of dolphins or a manta ray! Maybe those flowers need some ladybugs and those polka dots need some faces. Experiment with your stitches and colors.

Corrupt the design. Maybe you can’t help stitching a wolf behind the window of the tea party or a UFO in the night sky — or turning a bird into a lovable witch. Do it!

PROJECT

Scout Badge

You’re good at lots of things: Settlers of Catan, writing, cats (like, being nice to them)! Whatever your skills and passions are, celebrate them with an embroidered merit badge. It’s as easy as drawing something simple and coloring it in with thread.

What You Need

How You Make It

  1. 1. Mark a circle on the felt by tracing around the rim of a mug or glass. Then draw your (simple) design inside the circle using the chalk, marker, or pencil. If your design includes any written words, add those now, too. (You can also freehand the whole design by not planning or drawing it out before you start, but we’re planners.)

    When you’re happy with your design, stretch the fabric in the embroidery hoop (if you’re using one) and tighten it (see How to Use an Embroidery Hoop).

  2. 2. Thread the needle (see Thread Your Needle) with an arm’s length of floss and knot the end (see Knot Your Thread). Push the needle up from the back of the fabric, and use any of the stitches in How to Sew Embroidery Stitches to fill in your design.

    When you want to switch colors, tie off your floss on the back side of the fabric (see Tie Off the Thread) and cut it.

  3. 3. When your design is complete, remove the fabric from the hoop (if you’re using it) and cut along the circle you made in step 1.
  4. 4. Rethread your needle with embroidery floss and whipstitch or blanket stitch around the edge of the circle. Or, if you want to attach your patch to a jacket, jeans, or bag, you can pin your finished badge to the surface you want it on and secure it all the way around using whipstitch or blanket stitch.

Guess What?

A really expert sewer helped us with this project, which is why it looks so perfect! Don’t worry — our stitches never look as neat as this. And yours don’t have to, either.

Tip

Filling in Your Pattern

Your embroidered designs will come out sharpest if you fill in your pattern first (using, say, Satin Stitch) and then add outlines afterward using different stitches — like the backstitch or the Stem Stitch. You can also add any details you like, such as daisies (see Daisy Stitch) and French Knot.

For Fun

Flashy Mending

We love to mend things: we darn our socks and patch the elbows of our sweaters, the knees of our jeans, and even — sometimes — our furniture! This is partly because we’re thrifty and partly because we don’t like to waste old things that might just need a little extra love. It is very satisfying to fix something and keep using it.

But one other reason we mend things might surprise you: we love how it looks! Colorful patches and elaborate embroidery stitches make a piece of clothing fun and unique, and let you see the history in it — especially if you end up with layers and layers of decorative repairs. So the next time you end up with a hole in your jacket or a tear in your pants? Fix it, in as subtle or flashy a way as you like.