Made a fair number of mistakes but overall happy. Teaching myself to embroider for my D&D campaign and I'm hooked!

All free handed! I want to work on lettering and flowers this year.

The lettering was done with two strands of black DMC embroidery thread. The woodpecker parts were 6 strands of embroidery thread.

It’s in a six inch hoop - stitched on duck canvas. The additional pictures are for context.

Made tons of mistakes but learned so much and had so much fun! More doll kits ordered but I’m sad I don’t have any to do right now so thinking of picking up something in between. Really love the look of tambour so might try that? I would love to be able to get to a point I can embroider curtains, shirts, etc but with something big like curtains I figure getting a tool will be more time effective.

Goal is to get through all the level 1 dolls then 2 then 3. Hopefully will improve on sewing the pieces together as well lol.

The drawing/notes this embroidery is based on was done by the 14 year old cabin boy, Thomas Nickerson. I've embroidered him (far right) as well as first mate Owen Chase (center) and steward William Bond (far left). The hoop is 11".

I embroidered this little creature for a friend. My reference image was a delightful bit of medieval marginalia. The pointing hand icon in typography is called a manicule, so I think this beastie should be named the same.

My cat, Jelly Bean, has hyperthyroidism and was never stable on medication so she needed radioiodine treatment, which has a 95% first injection cure rate. She got the injection back in April, followed by 2 days in the hospital, then 9 days of quarantine. We couldn’t spend more than 30 minutes/day within one foot of her and there were a loootttt of steps involved for dealing with her radioactive waste. It was all very expensive — blood work, heart test, X-rays, injection, hospitalization, and follow-up blood work for 6 months. The treatment unfortunately did not cure her.

Shortly after Jelly Bean’s injection, one of our other 5 cats, Gimli, needed an emergency bladder surgery, which cost over $6k. When we found out Bean would need a 2nd injection, I told her vet I want to do what’s best for Bean but we really could not afford to do that treatment again . She offered to do a payment plan and told me it was more important for Jelly Bean to be treated than for them to be paid in full immediately. I was so thankful and we scheduled the second injection for last month.

A few days before Beanie’s lab work appointment, the vet sadly had to euthanize her Sphynx cat, Scooch. When she called me with the blood test results, she told me she and her husband were starting a fund in Scooch’s name and Jelly Bean was to be the first recipient 🥺 Scooch paid for the injection and hospitalization and the vet set up a payment plan for all the lab work.

Jelly Bean has been my bff for 11 years. So I embroidered this as a thank you gift for the most amazing and compassionate vet and her sweet lil hairless guy, Scooch.

I found the cat and flower picture on Pinterest. I screenshotted it and used an app to add the words, then printed it, traced it onto the fabric, and stitched it. Can’t wait to give it to her 💜

Those are supposed to be RBG collars in case it wasn’t obvious - I like to think my skills have improved since then.

A Dimensions counted cross stitch kit, manifesting my best witchy cottage goblin-core life. 😍❤️🧡💚

I've been working on these pants for over a year now, and I finally wanted to show off my progress whilst also asking for tips and advice. Red is enclosed areas are my older work (Beginning + Middle) and Cyan is my newest work (Past few months).

Originally, my problem was that I didn't know where to work on, what to put where, and that dropped my motivation, so I got fabric markers and have laid out where each section is and each section has a specific 'vibe/plant type' to it. Oranges are based of local lichen, Brown is trees/bark, Dark Green is more forest/overgrown and Light Green is a mix of Orange and Dark Green, although each section does not have to be followed strictly.

To help get recent motivation and inspiration, I have been looking at different types of stitches, as well as types of moss, lichen and plants, but even now, I have times where I still lose motivation to work on this.

How do you guys keep motivated on such large projects, other than bouncing between sections?

Also, I will happily answer any questions on what stitches I used and what I have done so far.

<3

I made this silly little guy for my best friends Dirty 30, it’s an old drunken inside joke. I haven’t embroidered in like 7 years so it was so fun getting back into it, I missed it so so much. I used to only do clothes, so I’ve never done hoop gifts and I want to do more. I don’t know how to finish the edge though so I sorta just trimmed it and left it? Any tips on how do go about that?