Embroidery Is My Middle Name!

Hello lovely people!
Here is the moment you, (well.. I) have been waiting for!
Thats right!! It's time for some embroidery!!! My favorite area in textiles!
Now, i apologise in advance if i get carried away, as i am bound to do so.

We have just started our second module of our first year at university! It is an embellishment and printing module, and for the past few weeks i have been experimenting with different techniques of hand and machine embroidery!
Hand embroidery is my main passion. I just love all the fiddly stitches and love creating beautiful intensely created  images!

So here are a few bits of what i have been up to, but dont worry, there is much more to come!

Firstly, lets look at some of my workshop pieces. These are some techniques of different types of embroidery! ENJOY! 

This is my reverse applique technique! I love this technique, and used to go mad with it, useing layers of different fabrics and sweat rappers, ribbons, netting, anything and everything i could find! This is a great technique to use up some old bits and bobs that you cant normally find a use for! With this particular piece, i have used a light fabric layer and some sweat rappers underneath my main fabric. I have then sewn an image using free hand machine embroidery, and gone snip happy in any large enough areas that i could cut out. 

And here is my bonded applique technique sample! 

Using two fabrics and free hand machine embroidery. Bondaweb is great to use for applique, as it gives you the exact shapes you want to use for an image, and is easy and quick to use. 

This is my shadow applique piece. This is the same as the one above, however you cut away the back layer rather than the top layer. This works using a sheer or transparent fabric on top, so you can see the details underneath. 

 These three leaf techniques are built up using different hand embroidered techniques!
The first leaf has been sewn using french knots, satin stitch and stem stitch. (my favorite stitch!)

The second leaf is the most simple of the three, only using satin stitch, back stitch and stem stitch again. 

Then the third and final of my three leaves has been sewn using stem stitch, satin stitch and back stitch!

 This flower has been built up through stitches such as satin stitch, stem stitch, french knots, running stitch, back stitch, and also couching!

And 

here is my free hand 

embroidered flower!

 Again, using free hand machine embroidery.

Free hand machine embroidery, but this time working with coloured threads.

 

And again, but in a more linear fashion, this time not blocking out the colours but focusing on the use of lines and colour. I also used black as the bobbin thread, so it would show through into the image giving it an interesting dotted effect

There is plenty more to come!
Lots of love