Completed embroidery wall art of the palm series

How I Create My Embroidery Art

My process involves analogue and digital methods in the creation of my pieces. I like to use my digital skills for creating my design pattern and then seeing it form into a physical piece by hand stitching it.

Inspiration can hit me at any time so I either jot ideas down on paper or type them in my notes app. I have so many ideas that I take time to go through and collate them together, usually one idea will override the others and I’ll run with it. My ideas cover a wide range of themes but the one constant is my style.

Design

I create my designs in photoshop, then from there I import them into an app called Stitchly - this app is brilliant as it takes my design and applies it to the grid size I want and also gives me a list of the thread colours I’ll need. This saves me so much time as beforehand I was individually colour matching the threads to my design!

Faded palm design created in photoshop

Faded palm design turned into a cross stitch pattern each stitch labeled with the thread number

 

Creation

From there I move to analogue and prepare my fabric and threads and start stitching my pattern. Depending on the size of the piece and how many colours are used will determine the time it takes to hand stitch the design. If it’s a text piece then this is quicker and can take one day to stitch, a big scenic piece can take 2-4 weeks to complete.

Faded palm design being stitched on black aida fabric in an embroidery hoop

 

Once the design has been hand stitched, I wash it and leave to dry, the next day I’ll press it and it’s then ready to mount. I mount each piece to stiff card that I first cover in felt and then it’s ready to be framed.

All my original designs follow this process and for custom portraits I use your photo to create the pattern. 

Faded palms completed embroidery mounted on a backing board after being pressed
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