It feels like just yesterday I was scrolling through Tik Tok looking for inspiration for my learning project, and now I’m finally on the other side of it! I spent this semester working on learning embroidery and taking you all along on the journey. While my progress felt slow at times, I look back on everything I accomplished with a sense of pride. Not only did I learn about embroidery, I also learned about so many different communities that can help you on a journey like this. Below I’ve summarized everything I’ve attempted this semester while learning embroidery!

Week 1 Back to the Basics 

This week I learned all the basic stitches I would need to create a real piece. I used a blog that was dedicated to embroidery, which had pictures and videos on how to complete each stitch. This was a very successful week and the blog I sed made it so easy to learn these beginner skills!

Week 2 Learning Through… Tik Tok?

Just as the title suggests, I used Tik Tok this week to create my first piece of embroidery! Tik Tok was one of my favourite sources I used during this project, as I often needed a refresher on certain stitches. During this week, I attempted to use Tik Tok to find a whole tutorial, which I soon figured out was impossible. So instead, I used it as inspiration to find a great design and some tips I used throughout the rest of my project! I also made my own Tik Tok this week, which was one of my favourite ways of documenting my learning!

Week 3 The Powtoon Trap

This week I used Powtoon to create a mini-lesson on embroidery as I worked on a new piece. Overall, I had a really difficult experience with Powtoon but I still had many thoughts on how to make it useful in a classroom. You can check out the Powtoon I made here. I also used this week as a chance to work on some basic stitches and try out my brand-new embroidery pen (more recent review: I think it’s magic).

Week 4 Getting in my Leafy Greens 

This week I followed my first YouTube tutorial! I wanted to learn how to follow a pattern so that I could hopefully learn the right language to one day try a written pattern. Youtube is one of my favourite platforms for learning and the tutorial led me to create one of my favourite pieces I created! I also learned how to incorporate videos straight into my blog, which really upped my blogging game.

Week 5 Am I a YouTuber Yet? 

This week I used Youtube editor for the first time which, I have to say, is definitely inferior to iMovie. I finished the piece I was working on during my Powtoon blog, which I vlogged during my Youtube video. As much as I didn’t prefer Youtube’s editing system, having a YouTube channel is still one of my favourite platforms for creating a community and I think will become increasingly important in classrooms. These past couple of weeks I was working on creating larger pieces of embroidery, which required a lot of time and patience. The stitches were basic but it took a lot of time for me to master staying on the lines to create a better piece.

Week 6 Hitting the Breaks 

Here’s where things started to slow down a bit. This week I wanted to create a piece using a DMC pattern, which is a website that has tons of free craft patterns. Embroidery is very time-consuming and I started to realize I was probably getting a bit too ambitious, so as I ran out of time I created something else to help me on my journey, a Zine! I got the idea from Tik Tok, and it was one of my favourite things I learned because it can be used for so many different things. I created a stitch cheat sheet, which I used throughout the rest of my projects.

Week 7 Snowed In

This week, a giant blizzard completely halted all my progress, so again I turned to a unique way of continuing my learning project. I decided to research the history of embroidery, as it’s a very long-standing tradition, especially for women. I was able to learn a lot about what it means to different people and the history of different places. My favourite source was this video, which goes over the history of embroidery.

Week 8 The Long Haul

After overcoming a bit of burnout, I finally went back to my DMC pattern from week 6. One of the things I learned this week was reading a written embroidery pattern. I had expected it to be similar to a knitting or crochet pattern but it was actually so much simpler to read. I also got to try tracing a large pattern, which I had never done before. This piece was one of the biggest I had done, so I got to try a lot of new techniques on how to complete it.

Week 9 Re-igniting My Embroidery Passions

After suffering from a lack of motivation, I decided to quit the DMC pattern. Instead, I headed over to Pinterest to attempt to regain some inspiration. Pinterest is one of the best places to find great inspiration for literally anything and so it wasn’t hard for me to find something that excited me. I also got to try embroidering on clothes for the first time as well as using my air-erasable side of the embroidery pen. This week really showed me what I love about embroidery and why I chose to learn it in the first place.

A Summary of my Journey 

Overall I feel like I was able to accomplish everything I had wanted to during this project. For me, hobbies like this are a way to express my creativity and create something that makes the people around me smile, which I was able to do. I had attempted embroidery unsuccessfully in the past and so my goal for this project was just to complete a piece of embroidery with pride. I would say I was able to do that and I also think after this I have the confidence to find sources that I can use to complete bigger pieces. My biggest struggle with this project was simply my own patience. I usually take forever to finish a craft project, for example, it took me 2 and a half years to make a single knitted blanket because I kept getting bored. However, I’m very proud of all of the amazing things I made this semester and the progress I made at mastering the basics of embroidery!

My favourite sources I used this semester were Tik Tok, Youtube, blogs and Pinterest. Tik Tok and YouTube really helped me as a visual learner but I also think they are so amazing for creating a unique sense of community Almost anything you need can be found on one of these sites and I think they will be some of the best ways to create a community in my future classroom as well as provide extra support by making my own instructional videos. The embroidery blogs I used were also so incredible and after blogging for a semester, I can say it’s one of the most fun ways of expressing my thoughts and what I’ve learned. Pinterest was also one of the sites I used that I loved. Aside from the amazing inspiration, you can find on Pinterest, it’s also a super easy site to post on and if you’re creative with plenty of ideas, I would definitely suggest you post them on Pinterest. So many people use it to find inspiration so it can be a great way to create a community where you share all of your ideas. It has a feature that lets you add detailed instructions for any activity so it’s really easy to use.

Thank you to everyone who has followed along on my embroidery journey. You’ve all been so supportive and encouraging of my progress and it definitely helped keep me motivated throughout the long semester. I hope you all found at least 1 useful tip from my blog and I hope you can all experience the amazing learning communities that exist on these platforms!