A New Hobby For 2017: Learning How To Do Embroidery

I don't think you can have too many hobbies.  The only problem is trying to fit them all into what ever spare time you may have. That being said, I still decided to add to my hobby collection by learning how to do embroidery.  As you may have seen on my previous posts, I already do cross stitch but I've always wanted to learn how to embroider.

There are so many different types of stitches in embroidery which can create a brilliant array of textures and patterns. Above you can see that I've been gingerly practising a few of these.  At the moment, things are a bit wobbly but it was really fun to see the patterns a stitch can make.  I'm learning from a book I got for Christmas which is called 'How to Embroider: Techniques and Projects for the Complete Beginner', by Susie Johns. You can get a copy on Amazon here. I'd highly recommend it as the images and instructions are really easy to follow. 

I then decided to attempt a little freehand piece with my favourite stitch so far, the chain stitch. I chose a cactus because I was looking at my little baby cacti today, willing them to grow and one day flower like this one.
It was pretty fun to try to 'draw' with the thread and it was very freeing compared to when I work on my cross stitch.
I'm going to go back to practising the stitches again before attempting any more cacti...or other things. I'm also going to invest in a different type of material to work on as this cotton is a bit thin.

I'm still continuing with cross stitch too and this is my most recent project.  It's a victorian sampler kit which I got for Christmas and it's going pretty well so far. Cross stitch takes a lot longer than embroidery but it's worth seeing the image slowly appearing. I think this one will look particularly nice when it's finished as I've always loved victorian samplers so it's pretty enjoyable to create my own.

It's really fun to learn a new skill, especially when it can flow into your other work.  I'm really keen to embroider some of my own drawings in the future when I've become a bit more confident with the stitches. I'll be sure to post up my progress on here. Have you taken on any new hobbies for the new year?

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