Introduction

With this book, I invite you to join me on a creative path via creative embroidery. I aim to introduce you to a way of thinking about hand stitching that not only teaches you to embroider, but also gives you the tools to improvise and adapt stitches to your needs.

Contemporary hand embroidery is a form of self-expression. As you stitch, you will make dozens of small choices, such as choosing a fabric, a stitch, a thread, a color, the thickness of thread, size and spacing of stitches, and so on. Through these small, personal decisions, you express yourself.

As you stitch, resist comparing your creative work with others, and don’t worry about being perfect. Exploring your creative self is not a competition. How can you compete with something that can’t be measured? Competition undermines creativity.

Perfectionism freezes all creativity. As humans we are not perfect. Of course, we strive to improve and be better at what we do, but there is a great difference between aiming to improve, and perfection.

Handmade items are a little bit wobbly, a little uneven, and you relate to them because they leave a trace of the hand that made them. They are human rather than perfect.

There is very little right or wrong in contemporary textile practice, just methods of working that are suitable for what you are making, and other methods that are unsuitable.

What do I mean by methods that are suitable and unsuitable? To give you an example, if you make a garment, obviously it has to be stitched so that it will hold together. This will influence the process. If the garment is to be embellished with embroidery, this will also influence your choice of stitches. The stitching will need to be washable and reasonably hard-wearing. That constraint will influence your creative choices.

On the other hand, if you are making something for purely decorative purposes, the item may need to hang on a wall, or it may be small—such as a fabric postcard. Because these items are to be used in different ways, their use will influence the type of embellishment you might choose.

Remember these few ideas as you stitch, because these ideas can be liberating, particularly if you have ever had a needlework teacher negatively criticize your efforts. Enjoy your journey and sit and relax with your stitching, as the embroidery police have long gone. It’s time to banish them from your head too!

Detail from a fabric book page