Must Have Tools to Hand Embroidery

 Valentine's Day Couple Embroidery

Hand Embroidering Tips

Inuyasha and Kagome

Hello everyone!

Senpai is back and she has missed the community dearly!  

In today's blog she'll be going over the materials used for this embroidery hoop, this blog is a little more beginner friendly like the other blogs you've seen long before. I'll be listing all of the items needed for this embroidery of Kagome and Inuyasha as my 2025 Valentine's Day theme of a couple.

This hoop in particular was supposed to be for 2024, but life has had some unpleasant and unexpected surprises, it's caused me to delay a lot of other things than just embroidery itself. Luckily, I'm now getting into the swing of things, and I hope to finish what I've planned over a year ago, including some hoops I owe to close friends. 

This official art image is very simple as well as the hoop stitches, I'll also be using the thread direction method while including black and iridescent glass beads for Inuyasha. This hoop is more than just shiny from its sheen of the stitch direction, it's literally glowing just like the Ponyo hoop back in 2022! 

Happy Stitching! 

Materials for Hand Embroidering

Here is a quick description of all the basic materials needed for creating this embroidery hoop. As mentioned, before I like to plan my embroideries beforehand stitching anything, so I know what to prepare for and what to expect when embroidering the reference image chosen.

Essentials

• Fabric
• Embroidery Hoop (mine is wrapped with cotton fabric (bias tape) to create more grip)
• Needles
• Embroidery floss
• Carbon paper: Fabric Solvy or other transferring tools, whichever you feel most comfortable with!
• Scissors

Stitching Tips

Finding the right stitch when thread filling an embroidery piece, I usually go in with the long and short stitches technique. This is a stitch I'm most comfortable with, I have a few tutorials on my membership blog on Ko-fi! 

Fabric

I tend to lean to cotton fabric when stitching, careful to always figure out the grain direction before placing your fabric into the hoop. When placing your fabric into your hoop you want to be sure to figure out the grain direction from the salvage edge, doing so helps your fabric pucker less! 

Embroidery Hoop

I do love a good "hoop wrapped in fabric bias tape" This gives it an extra grip onto your fabric, that's if you don't have a plastic one dispensable. I almost never use a "naked" wooden embroidery hoop, only because the fabric tends to loosen, the fabric puckers eventually and it's difficult to make my stitches tight. 

Needles

I absolutely love these 24k embroidery needles, they dull less, they stitch very smooth and most of them come in no. 5 sizes, which is my go-to needle size when stitching anything and everything. 

Embroidery Floss

When purchasing embroidery floss, I went a little cheap and purchased these amazon brand floss, sure they were cost effective but nothing gives more shine than actual DMC embroidery floss. As a beginner I do suggest Amazon brand floss, just to get yourself into the swing of things before using that good floss into your embroidery hoop.

Carbon Paper

I'm not going to belittle the use of fabric solve, but if you noticed the embroidery community now, especially those who have been embroidering for 3+ years, you see how rarely we/they use fabric solvi. I think it's safe to say we've had a few bad experiences in it, because same! 

Carbon paper is easy, less messy, no drying time and lets you embroider without having to deal with puckering and sticky needle. Cabon paper has it's highs and lows, be mindful of the smudging, I still have yet to figure out a way to prevent that, none thus far.  

Scissors 

Treat yourself to some nice snippers for cutting your embroidery floss, mines have dulled out and frequently pulls the thread very badly. Fortunately, I spoiled myself to these nice, sharp and luxurious looking scissors for cutting all my threads! 

If you're up to needle painting your embroidery, I also have a tip for you with 3 simple tricks to help you on that subject! 

Want to see more?

If you'd like to witness the full tutorial and more tips on this embroidery hoop, you can catch all of it on my Ko-fi!

Also, if you'd like to reserve this piece for yourself it will be up for sale! I won't be posting photos, videos or work in progress pictures anytime soon on my Instagram just to keep myself within the theme of things.

See you next time! 

What would you like to see next? 

It could be a topic, or a question on this piece in general, I'd love to help anyone out as much as I could!