Everything you need to know to embroider the kit you chose!

Hello you! I’m so glad you’re here, ready to start stitching your own colorful world! Embroidery is a great way to express yoursefl artistically and relax your whole body and brain.

Take a few moments to read through all instructions, and then you can start embroidering your shiny new kit! Before we get into all the crafty details, I would like to thank you for choosing to buy this kit, as A Shiny Day is a small biz run by one crafty lady, yes, me, Alexandra! All kits are designed, and tested and put together with much love and respect. So, let’s get crafty, shall we?

You can learn some of the most useful stitches, in the following video tutorials. You will also find some suggestions on what stitches you can use for each embroidery kit, but please feel free to approach your embroidery kit the way it feels right to you. After all, this will be your own, very personal artwork.

First things first!

The first thing we need to do is to place our fabric in the hoop. The fabric may be already placed, but I suggest to undo it and then try one more time by yourself so you can practice this part of the process too.

Make sure that the fabric is really tight, and the design is nice and straight and not distorted.

What about the threads?

All embroidery threads like the ones in the kit, are six-stranded. That means you can work with all 6 threads, as it is, or divide your threads in 2, or even in 3. That depends on many things, such as how much time you have available, or how detailed you want your embroidery to be. When we work with 3-stranded threads, we can work better in smaller designs and have a more detailed, fine result. But, when we work with 6-stranded thread, we can also have a great -kind of faster- result, but the filled area will be a liiiitle more bumpy. Maybe this video will help :

Let the fun part begin! In the following video, you can learn the basic stitches. You can choose the ones that seem easier and most understandable to you and practice them, applying them to the design.

Important notes from your teacher, yes me :

- Try to make your stitches on the outside of the pattern. Flashback : remember when in school we learned to draw inside the lines? Okay, let’s forget about that, here we want the exact opposite. We want our needle to pierce the fabric just outside the pattern line. In this way, we cover the printed design and our embroidery will come out beautiful!
- If in our design, there are 2 colors that will be embroidered side by side, we want each stitch of one color to start where the other finished. In simple words, the colors must be very close to each other, so as not to leave gaps.
- If we want, we can border the color combinations with split stitch, with three-strand thread.
- It is very important that our fabric is well stretched, don’t forget this.
- We make firm and tight stitches, but not so much that we pull and distort the fabric.

Scroll down for more detailed instructions for each embroidery kit.

When you complete your artwork, I will be very, very happy to see it. Feel free to share your progress with the A Shiny Day community on Instagram @ashinyday or email me at info@ashinyday.com, or even post it on Google.

Having some trouble? I’m here for you

You can always email me at info@ashinyday.com. And if you liked doing embroidery and want to take it a step further, you can sign up for the next workshop to learn all the secrets of the technique and improve your skills.

The important thing is to give yourself the space and time to learn something new. Don’t be disappointed if something doesn’t turn out the way you want it from the start. It takes practice and good will! Slow progress, is still progress, right? After all, we do these activities to relax and have fun, and no one will judge us for our effort. Again, whatever you need, I’m here!

VALLEY

I would suggest satin stitch on all designs and slip stitch between colors.

DUTCH

You can work with slip stitch on the walls, satin stitch on the windows. I suggest to split your threads in half and work with 3-stranded threads for this design.

QUEEN BEE

Bee’s body : Satin Stitch

Wings, legs and smaller thing parts : Split stitch

BUDAPEST

Suggested stich : Satin Stitch

Quick tip : Start with the letters

CACTUS

Cactus : Slip stitch + free stitches

Pot : Backstitch or satin stitch

FLORES

Satin stitch with 3-stranded thread

LOVE WINS

Satin stitch

Take a look at this TUTOREEL :

https://www.instagram.com/reel/ChaEInkKcGC/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

AVOCADO

Slip stitch or backstich, working from outside to the center, in a spiral way. As for the avocado’s pith, I suggest either satin stitch or even french knots!