i was really inspired by an illustrator at my school who does embroidery work, but every time i try embroidery it looks like a hot mess haha. their mugs and the pattern from the thread really got me interested, and my roommate actually scored the green one.

does anyone have any tips/tricks they can share with bettering embroidery? i want to give it another go soon so i can give a little patch for my boyfriend before he leaves for the summer.

I LOVE embroidery. One thing that helps if you want to make little images like that is to sketch everything first. You can buy markers, chalk and pens (in a craft store, or in a sewing supply store) that will wash out really easily. That way, you can sketch on the outlines, and then fill in the spaces with stitches.

From the looks of your example, you probably want to work primarily with a satin stitch.

This site has a good guide to satin stitch: https://crafts.tutsplus.com/tutorials/embroidery-fundamentals-how-to-do-satin-stitch--craft-18822

This site has some really good troubleshooting, if your satin stitch isn't looking very nice and smooth... https://www.needlenthread.com/2015/02/10-tips-for-a-sensational-satin-stitch.html

Of course, if you really want to get into embroidery, and wind up making really great art, you'll need to learn to use more stitches, and also to use lots of variety of thread: ribbon, silk, embroidery floss, etc. :O

oh wow that website is really helpful, thanks so much!!! n____n i do want to try a little bit of everything though, what i linked was just what primarily inspired me to try embroidery again. i never knew people used things other than embroidery floss though, that's really interesting!

do you have any pictures of your own embroidery stuff? :^0 i'm interested in seeing what you've created as well

I don't, because I mainly just work on the one project, which I'll NEVER finish. I'm making a crazy quilt, which basically means instead of neatly sewing squares of fabric together, you loosely attach completely random shapes of fabric onto a base piece of fabric, and then stitch them on more solidly using random embroidery. So in the end, there are no basic stitches (since you tear out those first stitches that held the fabric down), so the embroidery is all that holds it together. :O I've been working on it for years, but it is SOOOOO much more work than a regular quilt!

I don't have any pictures of my own (maybe I'll try to take some a bit later this week), but here are some pictures I've found that are particularly inspiring:

In some, you can see that they've added lace, or beads, or they've embroidered with things other than regular embroidery floss, too. :O

But yeah, if you look up crazy quilts, you'll see lots of amazing embroidery. :O

that's really interesting! don't worry, no matter how many years it takes i'm sure it'll be worth it in the end. n___n masterpieces aren't always made in days or weeks or months. those examples are absolutely gorgeous though @ ___@ !!! especially the second to last one, the color palette is so nice! i don't think i'll be getting that crazy though, i just wanna make cute little illustration-y pieces. i've been following Emillie Ferris for awhile and she does such nice literal pieces with embroidery seeing these types of things with crazy quilts is really refreshing though