Hello Everyone!

This project couldn’t have come at a better time, well actually, better timing really would have been around April 2022 (you will learn why soon) – but I am not one to complain… so anyways, I am glad it is here now! During the pandemic when we were all spending waaay too much time at home, my roommate gifted myself and the other girls in our house an embroidery kit. Ok, you could be thinking either “Wow what a great gift idea!” or “Is that really a gift if you have to do it yourself?” – well she had done so in hopes we would do it together to pass time, which we did exactly that, so the end result wasn’t really our focus.

Anyways, this kit was incredibly fun.  Was I good at it? No not overly. Did I complete it on my own? Also no, I think it took 4 of us to finish this very basic piece. The point is that despite it not being perfect and not doing it from scratch, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I spent the time where I wasn’t confused about what I was doing, thinking about my late grandmother who always gifted handmade things. Those gifts were so special and now that she is no longer with us, even more so.

Fast forward 1.5 years to this spring, May 2022, my brother and sister-in-law welcomed the most beautiful little girl into our family. Now, I was thinking about gift ideas and just stumbled across the thought that our grandma would have made something incredible for her, so I thought I should continue on this tradition. Knowing I am not near as creative nor as talented as her, and keeping in mind I had only done one beginners embroidery kit over a year ago (which took me an embarrassingly long time to complete), I ordered a custom pattern off of Etsy to do an embroidery pattern for my niece. This pattern has been printed out and sitting on my desk since May 2022 – so, here comes the reason why this project is perfect, I am FINALLY going to learn how to do this pattern and complete it in hopes it can be her Christmas present!

Let’s talk about my game plan (sorry about the sport lingo, I was a student athlete, remember?), since the only embroidery I have ever done was 1.5 years ago and I had 3 friends helping me – I simply don’t remember anything I had once learned so we are starting from scratch and we are going to learn from only online resources! WOOHOO!

OK, back to the game plan, since I was feeling extra motivated when I first got this pattern I had already purchased the materials I thought needed but to refresh my mind I did a fast Google Search for “What you need to start embroidering?”.

Wandering Threads Embroidery quickly reminded me what I would need:

1. Fabric 
2. Embroidery Hoop
3. Floss (not for your teeth, FABRIC FLOSS)
4. Needles 
5. Scissors
6. Fabric Pen

I had everything at home except the fabric pen but figured I would need more colours of floss and more fabric as I am going to need a lot of practice – so I put in an order from Michaels.Now that the materials are taken care of, I am going to spend the rest of my journey from now until Christmas learning different stitches (starting with the basic and working my way up), how to incorporate the stitches into a piece, how to transfer a paper pattern to fabric and completing mini projects along the way.

Here are a few pictures of my Grandma Val’s work – both cross stitching and embroidery.

Stay tuned & wish me luck!