Interpretive Embroidery

These samples are a companion to our Interpretive Embroidery Kit (coming soon).

This project is very different from embroidering a regular sampler. It encourages you to use your imagination to interpret embroidery stitches in your own way. Once you work through this project, you will gain confidence to move on to create your own embroidered pieces, possibly using your own sketches, your kid’s drawings, or a found piece of art as a guide. The point is to have fun and use your intuition as you move through the squares.

With the kit, your receive a piece of fabric printed with a grid of 12 squares, an assortment of grey-scale flosses, and an embroidery needle. You can purchase a 6” hoop separately.

I have made two samples (Sample 1 and Sample 2) as guides for you to explore both the use of basic embroidery stitches in an intuitive and interpretive way to fill a space, and the use of different weights of thread to change the look, or feeling of the stitches. Both of these samples as well as the kit use grey-scale tones of embroidery floss intentionally, to keep the focus on the stitches…lines, weight, shape and depth … rather than on color. Occasionally, I might use a pop of color like an exclamation point, but the intention is the contrast of line and texture.

Feel free to use these samples as a template for your own exploration, either as a guide, or as a jumping off place for your imagination. If you get excited and want more gridded fabric for your exploration, you can purchase it in our online store!

I relied heavily on the lovely book by Susan Brandeis, “The Intentional Thread: A Guide to Drawing, Gesture, and Color in Stitch.”