I’m a firm believer that anyone can make gorgeous embroidery, but there are some traits that really help when picking up a needle to start an embroidery project. Here’s three and why they are important:

Patience

Embroidery can take a long time to complete.

I don’t often time how long it takes me to stitch a piece from start to finish as one of the joys of embroidery is you can pick it up and put it down at will. But for this piece I only stitched it in blocks of time (zoom calls and train journeys!) so I know this took 12 hours to finish.

You need to be patient and know that for many fully stitched designs such as this, you are not going to be able to finish it in an afternoon.

Perseverance

Especially if you are stitching a new design or experimenting with a new stitch, it won’t always go right first time.

It can be disheartening to see an area that you have spend an hour or two stitching doesn’t look quite right. But more often than not, making a decision to cut it out and re-stitch is the right one.

With this map of Europe I originally wanted to fill in each country with a different colour, but after completing a couple it just didn’t look right so I cut out all that stitching and started outlining instead. It looks so much better!

An eye for detail

I was originally going to say ‘attention to detail’ because you do need to pay attention to the smallest things. The fraction of a millimetre difference in where you place your needle for a stitch can make the difference between good and great looking embroidery. But it think that it’s slightly different to that - it’s about being able to look at a design or piece of stitching and notice where an added detail will make a difference.

I initially stitched the centre of this crocus using only orange thread, but it didn’t look quite right. Mixing one strand of yellow with one of orange, really made the difference.

But don’t worry if you are reading this and this doesn’t sound like you but you still want to create a great embroidery! This floral stitch sampler is the perfect project for you. Each floral motif is stitched separately meaning you can pick it up and put in down - you only need a small dose of patience to stitch each one. It come with pre-printed fabric and a guide of which stitches you can use for each motif - I’ve persevered and used my eye for detail to get this design right and ready for you to stitch.

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