Sara from Hello The Mushroom shares a great technique for making DIY embroidered tea towels.
I've always been an ‘on and off’ crafts enthusiast due to time constraints. Every now and then I have surges of creativity and embark on a couple of projects. Every time I buy Mollie Makes, I always find something that is inspirational or educational, as you can learn some really cool techniques you can adapt to your own designs. As embroidery has always been one of my favourite crafts, I've recently taken it up again, as I find it to be very relaxing.
In one of the latest Mollie Makes issues there was a piece on hand embroidered tea towels that I thought were super cute and simple to make. I needed to make a gift for a friend who was moving house, so that was the perfect idea. In the end I didn't use tea towels as I opted for using materials I already had in my craft stash.
To create a similar project you will need:
- Embroidery needles
- Embroidery yarn
- Fabric
- Scissors
- Embroidery hoop
- Design to get inspired by
- Tracing paper (if you have trouble freehanding it)
- Pencil
You will need to start by tracing the design onto the fabric, using your pencil. If you don’t feel confident about doing it freehand, make sure you have blown up or shrunk your design to the desired size and use tracing paper to transfer the design onto the fabric.
Place the fabric onto the embroidery hoop and stretch it as much as possible, as that will make it easier to work with.
Select the stitches you think will make your design look better. In this project, I used the ones suggested in the magazine: stem, French knot and scallop stitches. This was great as I had never tried stem stitching or French knotting before.
Tip: When cutting a length of yarn, make sure you don’t make it too long, as sometimes it can tend to knot up and that will give you extra trouble that you don’t need – not to mention that you may even have to undo a section of your work because of it.
Fill in the stitches on your design and voila! You have your own handmade embroidery. Because of pencil residue, you may need to wash it before you place it back into the hoop for hanging on the wall. Don’t forget to iron it before you stretch the fabric on the hoop again. Finish it off by cutting excess fabric from the back.
Next step: hang it on your wall!
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