After three weeks of stitching this hoop together, this week I’ll show you how to stitch a star stitch in The Happy Stitch Project so we can finish this lovely, motivational hoop!  I have really enjoyed stitching this piece, and I don’t know about you but I have found it has been lovely to keep coming back to it over the past few weeks. There’s something so nice about being able to put it down and pick it up again – it’s one of my favourite things about hand embroidery. It’s something I talk about a bit in my book, but I feel like my love for this aspect of embroidery has grown even more this month.

Last week (which was week 8) we learnt how to stitch a stem stitch. It has been brilliant seeing you try it out over on Instagram, and I’m so pleased that the loopy technique helped! If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’ll have to watch the tutorial on YouTube. I have definitely got better with practice! Thanks so much for sharing all of your photos – it really does make me so happy to see you enjoying the creative process during these difficult times.

How to stitch a star stitch

Watch the tutorial here:

In the tutorial, you’ll notice that star stitch is kind of two stitches in one! By making the horizontal and vertical lines, you can stitch a stitch that’s known as the St George Cross (which makes complete sense!). We aren’t learning this as a separate stitch in the project, but I thought it was worth mentioning in car you fancy using it at some point.

Watch me add star stitch to the Do Your Thing hoop here:

As you can see, I’ve used white thread on the white fabric to create the star stitch here. I have wanted to try this on something for ages, but as my projects are usually full of colour, I haven’t got around to it before now! I really love the effect of it – it is subtle but the stars still stand out. It was the final colour from the perfect pastels thread pack which I used for the rest of the project, so it was good to make sure it wasn’t left out. I really want to experiment with this more so I’m sure it will pop up in a future design.

Happy stitching!

I’m really looking forward to seeing you try out this stitch this week – don’t forget to tag me @hellohoorayblog on Instagram. And do let me know if you have any questions along the way.

Have you seen the first kit to accompany The Happy Stitch Project?

The Brighter Days Are Coming kit is the perfect way to put all your new stitches into practice! This kit gives you the right combination of freedom and guidance to create your own piece. Use the tutorial videos to help you to stitch your own design

You may also love…

My best-selling Keep Going kit is a lovely kit to work on over time:

https://hellohooray.com/product/keep-going-hand-embroidery-kit/

Or try a slightly smaller version with this design from my book, Colourful Fun Embroidery:

https://hellohooray.com/product/one-step-at-a-time-embroidery-kit/

If you need a thread conversion chart, I’ve got you covered:

DMC to Anchor thread conversion chart

The post How to stitch a star stitch appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.

I picked these words for this week because I’ve been hearing lots of small business friends saying that they’re suffering with the dreaded comparison at the moment. But it’s not just people who run a small business; anyone can feel it, and life in lockdown is making this more difficult. I think because everything is online at the moment, it’s easy to only present the best bits on social media. It’s something I talked about this week in this blog post. So this hoop is designed to be a little reminder to us all to keep doing our own thing. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what anyone else is doing; we’re all on our own journey and doing what works for us. Just keep doing you!

Do Your Thing embroidered hoop: materials list

17cm (7″) embroidery hoop

A piece of white cotton or linen fabric, measuring 25 x 25cm (10 x 10″)

Templates (click to download)

A permanent method of design transfer, such as a Sublime Stitching pen and hand embroidery transfer paper

DMC shades from perfect pastels thread pack – next week we’ll also use shade 03 to stitch around the edges of the letters

Needle

Some embroidery scissors

Watch the Do Your Thing embroidered hoop tutorial video

Watch the arrowhead stitch tutorial here first if you want to practice first.

Step 1

Trace the templates (see the materials list for the link to download) onto the fabric using your chosen method. If you’re using a heat pen and transfer paper, check out my tutorial video here. Place your fabric in your hoop.

Step 2

Thread your needle with 3 strands of the first colour of thread. Starting at the bottom of the letter ‘D’, stitch arrowhead stitches moving upwards and around in the direction of the letter. Think about the direction as though you were writing it and follow that! Make sure you don’t stitch over the lines around the edges, as we’ll be adding stem stitches around the edges next week.

Step 3

Repeat with the remaining letters, until all of them are filled in. And that’s it for this week! If you don’t want to add stem stitch, you could always stitch a back stitch around the edges instead this week

You may also like…

See my hand stitched social media icons!

Hand embroidered social media icons

See one of my first ever embroidered banners here:

Embroidered banner

Make some simple decorations for your home with these fabric covered letters:

Fabric covered letters

The post Do your thing embroidered hoop appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.

The design comes from the Flow magazine colouring book, which has the most gorgeous designs by Helen Dardik and Carolyn Gavin. Although I’m pretty good at stitching, I’m rubbish at designing so this was perfect!

I traced the design to make my own pattern on A4 paper to use as a template, as this was easier than trying to trace it onto my fabric out of the book. I used an air erasable pen to transfer it onto my fabric, which was some premium white Kona cotton that I love using for embroidery projects. The colours I used were the following:

Anchor 206, 208 and 210 (greens)

Anchor 28 (pink for the large flowers)

Anchor 26 (pale pink), 293 (yellow), 187 (teal), 146 (cornflower) and 119 (purple) for the shapes

DMC 3845 for the letters

I embroidered the design and then put the banner together in the same way that I did in for my painted banner (click here for the written tutorial or here for the video). I attached the pom poms at the end so they are visible at the back, but no-one is going to see that anyway! The pom pom trim is jumbo size and is from Frumble and I really love it! Each pom pom is 20mm in diameter, so it’s a great size for this banner. I’m obviously trying to think of other things to make with it haha!

I’ve already got my eye on a few other designs from the colouring book that I want to stitch (I will probably colour them in at some point too!). I love this bird and the tea pots too…

I’m now stitching something else for another friend – I am seriously into my embroidery at the moment! When it’s done I’ll share that with you too. What are you making?

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