NEW THREADS
IMPRESSIVE EMBROIDERY IS WITHIN YOUR GRASP WITH THESE SIMPLE, PORTABLE PROJECTS. YOU’LL BE COCK- A- HOOP WITH YOUR NEW- FOUND SKILLS
You will need: Template, downloaded from thesimplethings.com/blog/ embroidery-hoop-template Cream linen, 35cm x 35cm Heat-erasable fabric pen 15cm diameter embroidery hoop Stranded cotton skeins, 1 each in black, brown, gold, lavender, mauve, olive, pale pink, light pink, sage, tan, light terracotta and dark terracotta Needle Scissors Iron 1 Transfer the design from the template to the centre of the fabric with a heat-erasable fabric pen. Mount the fabric into your hoop with the design in the centre.
2 Stranded cotton is made up of six strands – in this design, you’ll be using all six strands in each colour. Cut a 50cm length of black and start by stitching the five Saguaro cacti in satin stitch (see the Stitch Library overleaf), working the stitches horizontally across the shapes and keeping them close together.
3 Next, start to fill in the background colours in satin stitch, again working the stitches vertically. Start at the top, then work downwards, always stitching into the edge of the traced outer circle. Your stitches will come to the edge of the inner hoop. Fill the top band with mauve cotton. 4 Start band two using pale pink. Where the two colours meet, aim to stitch into the same holes as the bottom of the band. This will avoid any fabric showing and give you a neater finish. Move on to band three, filling it with light pink, then fill band four with brown.
5 Band five is where you’ll begin to stitch around the Saguaros using light terracotta. Again, make sure you work your background stitches into the same holes as the Saguaro stitches. Start band six with dark terracotta. For the beginning of each band, start where this connects with the previous row. Make this stitch as vertical as possible to keep the direction of the stitches consistent from band to band, then continue to fill the band. This band contains a lot of sections of the Saguaros, too, so take care to stitch neatly around them.
6 Fill in band seven with lavender, band eight with tan, band nine with sage and band 10 with olive. Finally, fill in band 11 with gold to complete the design. To finish, erase your guidelines by pressing gently with an iron. Trim the fabric so that it’s about 3cm larger than the hoop.
Sew a simple running stitch around the fabric edge, then gently pull on the thread to gather the fabric neatly at the back. Work a few stitches on top of each other to secure.