More New Embroidery Stitches

My "learn some fun new embroidery stitches" project continues...

I spent a wonderfully relaxing evening last week working my way through some more of the stitches from The Needlecraft Stitch Directory. I'd really recommend this book if you're interested in learning some new stitches, I've found the step by step diagrams and instructions very clear and easy to follow.

I was quite excited to try some stitches that involved two different shades of thread:

Some of these were definitely more successful than others... but look how fancy they are! 

There are still lots more embroidery stitches in the book for me to try, but I think I'm going to have to set aside an afternoon or two to work on them as they're starting to get a bit too complicated for my slightly-sleepy-at-the-end-of-the-workday brain to cope with :)

Learning New Stitches

Back in the summer I decided to try and add some new-to-me embroidery stitches to my repertoire... but I have to admit to blogging about my intention to do this and then kinda forgetting about it for a while! Oops.

Apart from learning a couple of new stitches while working on those Christmas ornament kits, the embroidery I've done over the past few months has all involved the same old boring stitches. Tsk tsk. Must Try Harder.

I finally made a proper start on my stitch-learning project a couple of weeks ago.

I'm slowly working my working my way through the stitch guides in The Needlecraft Stitch Directory (which I reviewed a couple of years ago), trying out lots of different stitches.

Some of these experiments have worked out better than others! I'm not worrying too much about neatness and precision at the moment though, just giving myself some time to experiment with a needle and thread.

I might eventually stitch a sampler showcasing some of the new-to-me stitches but in the meantime I'm happy just randomly stitching and filling up a piece of felt with colourful patterns.

 

With any luck I won't forget about this project again but will have some more stitching to show you sometime soon :)

Please note: the Amazon link in this post is an affiliate link.

My First Granny Square

I know it's a bit wonky, but I'm so proud of this:


A whole granny square, stitched by me. Hurrah!

Whether I can manage a second one unsupervised has yet to be seen, haha.

In the meantime - I need your help! I really want to start following a few crochet-related blogs / crafty blogs with a bit of crochet in the mix, and would love to hear your recommendations for some good blogs to try.

Hooked!

Okay, so I am officially addicted to crochet now.


I'm not doing anything adventurous yet, still just practising the one stitch over and over to get the hang of it... but I think I'm getting there. Even the crochet novices amongst you will probably be able to spot the point at which I cracked it!

More crochet practice is planned for this evening while watching the gloriousness that is Eurovision :)

My first attempts at crochet

I tried crochet for the first time today - so exciting!


The lovely lady who is teaching me has the patience of a saint and was sweet enough not to laugh at all the strange faces I pulled while concentrating on stitching this :)

It's very strange getting the hang of how to hold the hook and the yarn, after so many years knitting... but it's lots of fun.

I am slightly worried though that I am now going to spend the whole week practising these stitches and not get any work done!