My grandmother’s aunt taught her to embroidery. She taught my mum and my mum taught me. I now use embroidery to make a living. There’s a few easy to learn stitches I love and use all the time. Here’s two of them…

Number 1: Back Stitch

The back stitch is classic, one of the simplest stitches out there. You can use it to embroider text, outline designs and draw shapes with stitch. All StephieAnn socks use a back stitch. Below are instructions found from my Awesome embroidery kit:

How to back stitch

1. Bring your needle up on the ‘I’, to begin stitching around the outside

2. To start a backstitch you always go forward 1 stitch. The stitch length should be
approximately 2mm

3. For your second stitch, bring the needle up 2mm forward, away from the end of stitch 1

4. Your second stitch is the backstitch. Take the needle down again, meeting the end of your first stitch

5. Repeat the backstitch by taking the needle up 2mm away from the end of your last stitch & down again to meet it

6. Keep going until you’ve outlined each letter and inside of the a’s, e’s and o

Number 2: French Knots

Visually, French knots are my favourite stitch. They look fantastic grouped together, or as stars around your embroidery design. A good French knot can create a real impact into your stitchwork. The instructions below are taken from my, ‘I Can, I Will! T-shirt Embroidery Kit’.  

How to French knot

1.Bring the needle up where you want to knot.

2. Hold the needle in your writing hand close to the fabric & using your other hand, wrap the thread anti clockwise three times around the needle. Grip the end of the needle in your non writing hand & with the other, hold the thread taught.

3. Put the sharp point of the needle down into the fabric very close to where you came up. If you go down in the exact same place, the knot will fall through.

4. Squeeze the wrapped thread over the eye of the needle & push the needle down, all the way through the fabric. Top Tip: The wrap needs to be tight with a tiny amount of slack for the knot to pass over the needle eye.

5. Pull the needle tight & your French knot will appear. Keep knotting until every space is covered.

I can & I will T-shirt Embroidery Kit

£29

Do you have a favourite stitch? Or is there a stitch you’d like to try?

My embroidery kit’s feature a selection of techniques perfect for both never tried needlework novices and experienced stitchers too.

*****

“I really enjoyed my StephieAnn embroidery kit and am loving the result! It gave me a chance for my brain to switch off for a while! Instructions were easy to follow, everything was included, the colours and materials were really nice quality. I’ve popped mine on the wall to appreciate.”

Katherine purchased a Boogie Embroidery Kit – 13th May 2021