10 More Embroidery Projects

Reflecting on 10 more of my past embroidery projects! 🧵

I shared last month my first 10 embroidery projects and now its time to catch you up on the rest! Here are 10 more of my past projects.

1. Little Plant Girl
2. Space Man
3. Hummingbird
4. I Love You Alan Partridge
5. Bike with Flowers
6. I Love You Dwight Schrute
7. Space Hands
8. Country Cottage
9. Embroidered Gloves
10. My Parents in a Bush

1. Little Plant Girl

This was a pattern from Issue 2 of Love Embroidery magazine by Miriam @slow_evenings_embroidery. I really loved stitching it and it was my first proper go at using long and short stitch to fill in a larger area, and I was happy with how it turned out. My problem with this was I used a fat quarter of cotton which is thinner than my usual Murano even weave fabric and I struggled with getting good tension in my hoop. Then after soaking the finished piece I couldn’t get my iron in to get it nice and flat so she is a bit lumpy bumpy.

I now know (from later projects) I should have bound my hoop to make it a tighter fit, and I could have pinned the soaked piece to keep it flat. I could still unframe her and stretch her out, if I could be bothered!

2. Space Man

This one was an experiment and a bit of a struggle to be honest! The design is from Urban Threads and it was really meant for machine embroidery, but I thought I could make it my own. I like him but I know I could do a lot better if I tried it again now as I’ve gotten much neater. I do love how the black frame looks and the silver stars. I should do more spacey things.

3. Hummingbird

This beautiful design was another one from Love Embroidery magazine, this was in issue 4 and created by Jessica Long. I did change it a bit to use the colours I already had in my stash and I changed some of the stiches from the tutorial to suite my preferred style. I really loved this one but I ended up gifting it to my Mum!

4. I Love You Alan Partridge

I was feeling more confident at this stage and ready to do my own thing! This was a mixed media piece using acrylic along with thread. I love Alan Partridge so much,¹ and I was thrilled with how this one turned out. I really love the texture on his jumper. This is still my favourite!

5. Bike with Flowers

This cute little hoop was a kit that came with Love Embroidery magazine. I really enjoyed doing the basket and the flowers. The bike was tricky, and you can see my stitches could be neater! It used to be in my hall in my old house, I haven’t found a good spot for it yet at my new house.

6. I Love You Dwight Schrute

We had just done an epic re-watch of the US version of The Office together, so this was a valentines gift for my boyfriend. He loved it but he wasn’t too sure about letting me cat sit!

I really loved making this, I was very happy with how his shirt turned out, I was getting a lot better at satin stitch. Now I live with my partner so both Dwight and Alan live together on the wall!

I haven’t made anything else in this style and I really want to get back to it!

7. Space Hands

I love silly, creepy weird hands and I like space. This was a design from Issue 8 of Love Embroidery magazine, by Caitlin. As usual I didn’t follow the instructions to the letter, I changed the colours and made life a lot harder by using metallic thread! I’d got a set of the nice DMC Diamant thread which is slightly easier to work with than the regular metallic thread but still something of a nightmare. I do love how the colours and the metallics look on the dark fabric. I also painted my hoop a subtle gold to compliment it.

8. Country Cottage

This was a Christmas gift for my Nan. The pattern was a free one from DMC which again I did my own thing with. I like how the thatched roof came out, if I had had more time I could have done a bit more with it!

9. Embroidered Gloves

This was my first go at embroidering on clothes of any kind. They were a gift for my Grandma (though of course she asked where the fingers were!). The pattern from Issue 20 of Love Embroidery magazine, and it was very tricky because you don’t have a lot of room to manoeuvre inside a glove. They didn’t come out as neat as I’d like but also I think that gives them a bit of charm!

Sadly my Grandma died in 2022, and I got these back from her house. I wear them sometimes in winter when I’m working and its cold.

You can also see around this time I worked out that natural light in the garden makes for the best photos!

10. My Parents in a Bush

This was a very ambitious one, some might say too ambitious! It was another Christmas gift, for my parents. I saw this photo of them on a bench in a bush and thought it would make a great embroidery, which I guess it does but it involved hours and hours of bloody French knots, which really hurt your fingers after a while. I have since learned about full knots as an alternative stitch which are a lot easier and less painful, depending on the look you are going for!

I’m about 90% happy with how this turned out. I also, as you can see, made a fancier hoop frame. I used my old hot glue gun technique to create a knotty faux wood effect, this is a technique I used to use to make magic wands for the kids when I was a School Librarian!

I am almost up to date on the blog now with my past projects! There is one more portrait that I will give it’s own post because I actually still have a few photos of that so I can talk about it a little more!

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1. I love all of it, but especially season 2 of I’m Alan Partridge. Please enjoy this random YouTube compilation I just found. I often forget that Alan is not a real person, but that its Steve Coogan acting. ↩︎