Hand Embroidery: Complete Beginners Guide Part 1- Basic Requirements to Hand Embroidery

Embroidery is an art, which beautify fabrics for better looking, valuable things such as Dresses, Hand Bags, and Wall Hangers etc. As like as other art and crafts this art is also require creativity, time and imagination to gain better results. But, learning embroidery is an easy task. It doesn’t have any calculations to stress your mind, theories to memorize or cogitate anything. Knowing basic requirements can bring you valuable, good looking dress for your next party, handy hand bag for your daily use or amazing wall hanging for your sitting room.

1. Fabric

I have first mentioned this art remains on fabrics therefore must have thing is a fabric. Almost all fabrics can be used but, beginners should start from woven fabrics for ease of use. As an example I would go with Cotton fabric rather than a silk fabric not only because of its ease of use but also because of its low cost.

2. Needle

The next requisite of hand embroidery is Needle. Needles are available in a wide range of sizes and types. In hand embroidery we use Embroidery Needle and its size ranges from 0 to 10.

3. Thread

Like as fabrics, we can use any thread to stitch our patterns though most beginners use standard cotton thread as a start.

4. Pattern

None of them would give beauty of hand embroidery if you don’t have a pattern to sew. Creativity and imagination comes first when choosing a pattern. Even though you can design a pattern yourself, you can just choose an embroidery pattern from variety of design patterns available online.

5. Scissor

This is another must have tool for all embroidery arts. Scissor is used to cut fabrics and threads when needed. Alternatively you can use a blade instead, if available always use scissor for cutting purposes.

If you have these requisites you can start learning Hand Embroidery right away.

These are not required tools for embroider fabrics. But these tools will be able to ease your work if you use them.

1. Embroidery frame

This is a fabric tightening device available from different shapes and sizes. Using the frame would give clean design and ease your work. For me, this is not a necessary device because it doesn’t suit me. But some needle workers consider this as a necessary device for Hand Embroidery. So, the choice is yours.

2. Thread Helper

Those who are weak at threading a needle would find this tool as a great helper as this tool provide facility to thread to a big hole rather than the tiny hole of needle.

3. Carbon paper

When copying the design to your fabric carbon paper can be used as a printing tool. So, you can copy the design same as the original design. You can easily buy various colors of carbon papers from your local store.

With all these tools you can design any fabric by hand embroidery and create beautiful things as your needs. As I want to create clean and clear how to guide, my next hub is basic stitches guide. In that hub you can find step by step guide to stitch those basic stitches.

Click to visit Part 2 of this hub series.