The soothing, relaxing delight of embroidery
You don’t have to be an expert and only a few items are needed to enjoy the art of stitching images onto fabric or paper
Wildflowers, small animals and little girls — the microcosm created by embroidery is redolent of children’s books. Embroidery can be as heartwarming as it is pleasant to look at, and also soothing.
You can spend hours relaxing with embroidery, which is very much like drawing on fabric.
It is delightful to complete a work, and the pleasure can be prolonged by merely gazing at it.
Some people might think embroidery is a hobby only for sewing experts. Not true, said embroidery artist Anna Kawabata, who assures beginners there is nothing difficult about it.
“Stitch threads of various colours to the cloth, according to the patterns indicated,” Kawabata said.
You only need a few items to embroider: thread and embroidery needles, some kind of fabric, an embroidery hoop to stretch the fabric on and a thread clipper. A tailor’s chalk pencil and carbon paper are needed to trace patterns on fabric.
Kawabata said there are embroidery enthusiasts who carry around a pouch full of small embroidery implements. “They add stitches wherever they are, whenever they have time.”
While sizes of embroidery hoops vary, Kawabata recommends beginners choose one about eight centimetres in diameter. She also suggests using closely woven cotton fabric, which is easier to pierce with an embroidery needle.
Embroidery styles vary. Kawabata employs the satin stitch technique — a series of parallel flat stitches that completely cover a section. She also uses the outline stitch to make lines, and the French knot to create dots.
The outline stitch is made by overlapping backstitches to form a pattern; the French knot is made by looping the thread a couple of times around the needle before inserting the thread into the fabric.
Kawabata said the best way to start is to copy a pattern from a book written by a professional. You are less likely to make mistakes if you refer to such books, as they offer plenty of information about different stitches. Kawabata recommends working on flower patterns.
“You have to be very precise when embroidering animals and human figures,” she said. “Even a small mistake could spoil an intricate outline.” On the other hand, flowers would “look fine even if your stitches are a little askew,” she said.
Kawabata said anything made out of cloth can be embroidered. She suggested starting with small items, and told me she usually starts with a fabric brooch in her embroidery class.
Just embroider a small piece of cloth and then attach it to a base sold at stores. It will only take two or three hours to make a brooch about five centimetres in diameter.
If you feel like displaying your embroidery piece at home, you could use the embroidery hoop as a frame. There are red and blue hoops that can accentuate your work. To make it look more professional, make sure to use a thread that matches the colour of the frame.
Kawabata said embroidery work may look totally different if you change the colours and composition. “We call this the ‘embroiderer’s personality,’ ” she said.
Kawabata has also been promoting paper embroidery by designing and offering patterns.
Use sufficiently thick paper and make holes in it to outline the pattern. Run the thread through the holes to connect them to adjacent ones to make the image.
Though Kawabata admits there will be fewer types of stitches compared to those on fabric, she said there are still a wide range of patterns.
Kawabata suggests using smaller sheets of paper in different colours, or colouring the inner side of the embroidered sections with pencils. “It will give you a very different impression,” she said.