How to Embroider Almost Everything: A Sourcebook of 500+ Modern Motifs & Easy Stitch Tutorials

By Wendi Gratz

This embroidery sourcebook teaches you to turn a few basic stitches into endless creative designs—from alligators and bicycles to yucca plants and zebras.

In How to Embroider Almost Everything embroidery designer Wendi Gratz shares more than five hundred inspiring, fun, and sophisticated stitch motifs that offers a fresh take on embroidery. Gratz offers fully illustrated instruction for each design, plus step-by-step tutorials in each of the easy stitch techniques you’ll need.

You can re-create the motifs exactly as shown using the accompanying templates and stitch guides, or give them your own creative spin by changing details and colors to suit your own style.

This giant reference volume includes:

• A detailed checklist of everything you’ll need to embark on your stitch journey: threads, needles, fabric, and more.
• Step-by-step tutorials for essential stitches and other techniques for creating the motifs
• Answers to common questions and invaluable tips and tricks.
• 500+ modern motifs for almost everything, including people and pets, trees and flowers, everyday objects, food, home, and more.

Each book in the Almost Everything series offers a fun, comprehensive, and charmingly illustrated visual directory of ideas to inspire skill.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Oct 22, 2019
• ISBN: 9781631597909

Book preview

How to Embroider Almost Everything

How to

Embroider

Almost Everything

A SOURCEBOOK OF 500+ MODERN MOTIFS & EASY STITCH TUTORIALS —LEARN TO DRAW WITH THREAD—

WENDI GRATZ

CONTENTS

Introduction

Getting Started

FABRIC, THREAD, HOOPS, AND NEEDLES

Fabric

Thread

Embroidery Hoops

Needles

PATTERN TRANSFER SUPPLIES & METHODS

Pattern Transfer Supplies

How to Use Pencils and Erasable Pens

How to Use Pattern Transfer Stabilizer

WORKING WITH ALL TYPES OF FABRICS

Smooth, No-stretch Fabrics

Very Light or Thin Fabrics

Dark, Thick, Bumpy, Fuzzy, and Fluffy Fabrics

Stretchy Fabrics

STARTING & ENDING YOUR STITCHING

Starting Stitching

Ending Stitching

FINISHING YOUR STITCHING

THE BASIC STITCHES

Straight Stitch

Backstitch

Chain Stitch or Lazy Daisy

French Knot

Satin Stitch

GUIDE TO READING THE PATTERNS

Embroidery Stitch Patterns for Everything

Trendy Trees

Lovely Leaves

Flower Power

Favorite Houseplants

Selection of Succulents

Sweet Kitties

Devoted Dogs

Popular Pets

Creepy Crawlies

Woodland Creatures

Aquarium Swimmers

Under the Sea

Feathered Friends

Wise Owls

Barnyard Buddies

On Safari

Dinosaur Hunt

Girls Squad

Boys Team

Ladies

Gentlemen

Off to the Beach

Down on the Farm

Home Sweet Home

City Living

On the Road

Things That Go

School Supplies

Let’sGet Cooking

Sweet Treats

It’s 5 O’clock Somewhere

Laundry Day

Tool Shed

Classic Toys

Keys to the Kingdom

Fantasy Land

Space Race

Pirate Life

Monster Mash

Birthday Bash

Love & Cheers

Baby News

Let It Snow

Sun, Moon & Stars

Stormy Weather

Classic Alphabet

Numbers & Banners

Fancy Frames

Zodiac Signs

Paisley Power

Beautiful Borders

Resources

About the Author

Acknowledgments

INTRODUCTION

I like to think of embroidery as drawing or coloring in slow motion—with thread. It’s one of the most delightful ways I know how to spend a few minutes, or a few hours. I love to embroider while I watch television, but I also enjoy embroidering in front of a fire, with no music or television in the background, just listening to the sound of the thread being pulled through the fabric. It’s like a meditation.

Even if I never did anything with my finished stitching, I would love the process. But there are so many ways to use your work! You can add a bit of embroidery to your clothes, of course. A little