Embroidered Curves is name of my new class. I can see many people coming to the classes with their all singing and dancing machines and actually even the simpler ones these days have quite a few decorative stitches. But nobody seems to be using them, so I thought I’ll come up with a class to give people some ideas. We have already run similar class on the IOW, Su Douglas from Periwinkle Studio and I came up with cushion which she had beautifully embroidered. I have stick with the cushion as it’s nice size to work on but I have also added book cover – which would make a beautiful present. 

The idea is to use several strips of fabric, which are joined together in a curved seam – nice gentle curves which are great introduction into this technique. Then we used several different usually multicoloured threads and fancy stitches on the machine. The project can very easily stay this way or if you fancy, you can add some hand embroidery as well.

This is perfect project for trying and having fun with several different stitches. I have tried some I have never done before and it was great experience. Once you had enough of the hand stitching it’s time to turn your embroidered cloth into a project – cushion, book cover, bag, there is too many to choose from. 

Here you can see how simple cross stitch in a row and chain in variegated perle cotton brings a nice addition to the machine stitches. You can echo the curves or create a new ones. The key is in the contrast of the colours – I have used brown, mustard and blues – so you want to use threads which will stand on each different fabric. It is great project to show off all the multicoloured thread you have been collecting over the years!

Thank you for reading

Vendulka