Embroidery Tips I wish I knew | Sailor Moon Mercury Edition: Free Embroidery Pattern

Hand Embroidery Tips I wish I knew! 

Sailor Moon Mercury Edition

Sailor Moon Volume Cover Collaboration

My take

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"Mercury Star Power! Make Up!"

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"Together, we fight for love and justice, and together we will triumph." 

In this blog segment I will be providing a few hand embroidery tips and small step-by-step picture tutorials, when it comes to sketching your stitching guidelines. Also letting you in on small tips I wish I knew when I first started embroidering. In addition I will be sharing my DMC Color Thread Palette and the outline pattern I created myself. 

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This embroidery hoop was created for a Sailor Moon Collaboration featuring 10 other amazing artists. Please don't forget to check my Instagram to see your favorite Sailor Scout to get a full view of the completed group, the artists' who created them did such breathtaking job, I promise you it's so worth it! 

Artist Credits:

Sailor Moon ~ @Lizzstitch

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Sailor Mercury ~ @Senpaistitching

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Sailor Mars ~ @luckyduckystitches

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Sailor Jupiter ~ @sweet.co.bordados

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Sailor Venus ~ @kucrafts

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Sailor Chibi Moon ~ @heartfeltloves

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Sailor Uranus ~ @jredcrafts

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Sailor Neptune ~ @knotscape

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Sailor Pluto ~ @otcha.bordados

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Sailor Saturn ~ @kirameku_shop

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Creating the Outline Pattern

When creating the outline for my embroidery design I use an app on my tablet called “Sketchbook”, this app lets me sketch my outline of the image I’m using to later transfer the pattern to embroidery hoop. 

I first created the basic outline where I’ll mainly focus on the outside lines of the image, saving that and then moving onto my sketching the shading guidelines where I’ll be blending my thread colors for needle painting. As I was tracing my reference image, I began to visualize how I will be designing the entire embroidery hoop I'm creating.

Outline with Shading Guidelines

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Transferring the Pattern

Once you’ve printed your image, you can then begin to do the carbon paper tracing method.

Again this is my preferred process to transfer the image onto the fabric. If you’re comfortable using fabric solvy then that’s completely fine! I usually use fabric solvy to create my hoop backs!

If you need a little more help or want to see a few other ways to transfer your reference image onto your embroidery hoop, you can check out my blog on how I do it!

https://senpaistitching.blogspot.com/2022/07/3-ways-to-transfer-embroidery-pattern.html

Transfer Outline Done!

 

When done, you can start embroidering the outline of the image. My preferred stitch when embroidering the outline is a stem back stitch.

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Stitching on the Felt

I don't know what it is, but something about stitching white thread on white fabric makes me cringe, so I was happy to have found the inspiration from @heartfeltloves to use felt for the uniform, this was actually my second time using felt and I was super nervous!

When printing out my images, I was sure to print out 2 of the same sized image. 

One, to use when tracing it out with my carbon paper. I usually use pen to really imprint my image onto fabric, once that’s done I keep it for reference when embroidering. 

Two, to create and cut out chosen pieces of the uniform to utilize them as stencils for my felt pieces. I made sure that both of these images were to be the same size so the felt pieces I cut out are a perfect fit.

I used a basic blanket stitch when attaching to the felt pieces onto the fabric, I also had some small scissors on hand to cut away the bulk of the felt that kept poking out of the outline. Always be sure you’re using the same color thread as the felt you are using.

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Thread Direction | Including DMC Color Codes

• Color Palette

Before going into my small tips of thread direction, I've listed down all the colors needed to color fill your embroidery piece. Also categorizing the colors in the areas I used for embroidering.

DMC THREAD COLORS

Eyes:

799        Medium Delft Blue
3839      Medium Lavender Blue
BLANC
3842      Deep Wedge-wood Blue
796        Dark Royal Blue
*Sewing Thread: Navy Blue

Outline for Eyes:
930        Very Light Antique Blue

Hair:
820        Very Dark Royal Blue
518        Light Wedge-wood Blue
B5200
3843       Electric Blue
762         Pearl Grey

Skin: 
3770       Very Light Tawny
ECRU 

Skirt Ruffle and Bow:
334        Medium Baby Blue
519        Sky Blue
826        Medium Blue
799        Horizon Blue
747        Sea Mist Blue
3843      Electric Blue
3845      Turquoise 
762        Pearl Grey
3753      Light Antique Blue

Lips:
Sewing thread: Blue
3354        Hydrangea Pink

Felt Skirt Shading:
820        Very Royal Dark Blue
791        Very Dark Cornflower Blue

Outline:
3807       Cornflower Blue

Rough Draft of my color palette

In total I used more than 24 colors, I wanted to use 310 black thread for the inner details of the eyes but when I incorporated a Navy Blue sewing thread it gave me the dark outline/fill I needed but still with the blue hue that I kept consistent throughout my embroidery.

• Thread Direction

 

I’ve never valued the importance of thread direction until now, it absolutely makes a difference! 

I think my biggest goal going into this project piece was to stay diligent in my needle direction. In this part I’ll be sure to go into detail how I stitched and what colors I used. When I started filling in my embroidery piece, I began from bottom to the top. I usually do the facial details last hence why I start from the bottom just to get it over with.

 

Note: I only drew one (1) vertical guideline up and down, that one line is also my shading guide. One side (left side) will be my highlight thread color and the side (right side) will be my shade color.

Also drawing in the tiny boxes after I created my horizontal lines, it became much easier and neater, in my opinion, having a guide of how much thread to use, the direction I’ll be stitching and the area I am working in.

Moving onto thread filling the skirt ruffle.

           

Creating many guidelines on the skirt to ensure I create a shiny, satin effect. Repeating my small boxes step from the beginning so I know which colors are going where and to follow the curved lines. Following the curve helped me achieve the thread direction I was aiming for and gave me the gradient effect similar to my reference image.
In this area I worked with 7 colored blues to achieve the gradient effect I was aiming for, blending all thread colors together with long and short stitches. Ending each stitch row around the middle of the next one.

• Hair Direction

Again, using various colored blues to work in my blending and ensuring I get my shading correct. When stitching the hair I was sure to use small stitches (about 1-2 cm) starting with the lightest color in the center middle along with stitching in the dark thread color from the tips and shading area. This helped me blend the other blues I used in order, making sure I use the colors as the reference photo provided to make it identical.

The shine from the thread direction

Using a dark blue thread color to fill some of the felt skirt for shading and completely filling the underskirt with embroidery floss.

The end results when focusing through with thread direction is beyond beautiful, everything is naturally shiny, it's smooth to the touch and everything looks so well stitched.

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Embellishments

Moving onto Embellishments

Going over the embellishments since I needed both hands to be able to focus on placing my embellishments correctly. I was actually blessed by a friend (@knotscape) with the tip to use nail embellishments for my hoop since I was stuck on how to make this hoop a little 3-D.

My first embellishment I placed after I finished my hoop (just to ensure my thread doesn't snag onto any of the embellishments while I embroider) are the stars, luckily these stars and moons were a gift given to me by my boyfriend back in 2018, they came in handy to use for Sailor Moon Mercury's earrings! I also added another to her belt!

Amazon purchase!

The second embellishment material I used was a glass bead, unfortunately I couldn't find any blue stars to match the reference photo but I made it work with what's around me.

Walmart Purchase!

Lastly, using satin ribbon! I love working with ribbons and I was stoked when I got Mercury just to put a little ribbon on it, also adding some watercolor shading onto my ribbon to give it more of a gradient shadow effect. I added the ribbon on top of my finished embroidery piece, ensuring I matched my thread color to it and began to stitch.

Satin Ribbon 1/8 inch

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Back Felt Tips

In this back piece I chose a nice white felt sheet with glitter, using basic 310 DMC thread floss for my outline and adding several sequins to my back piece to give it a little more depth and to create a bubble effect around Sailor Mercury.

I printed my image out since I didn't want to use a whole sheet of my fabric solvy to print such a small piece, so instead I did the window tracing method to save me solvy.

After I finished stitching my outline and rinsed off all the solvy from my felt fabric, I began to position all sequins in a wave like pattern. I used two tones of blue colored sequins and added glass beads in the center with a lighter blue color, I liked this look since it gave it the look of "bubbles".

For a softer feeling after washing, add a little fabric softener.

Not a lot goes into my backing, well not too much where I need to go into detail how I create them. When embroidering a piece I don't put much thought into the back felt piece until I'm about 75-85% done with my main embroidery, by then I have my inspiration and I try to pick something that flows with the hoop bringing everything together.

Sequins close up

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Here she is!

"Mercury Power! Make up!"

"Some people might call me a bookworm but my most lethal weapon is my brain!"

More close ups!

Thank you so much for taking the time to come to the end! This embroidery project was so much fun and such a learning experience. As usual it's always an honor when getting to work closely with these brilliant artists'.