How to do Shadow Embroidery: It’s So Stinkin’ Easy You Seriously Won’t Believe It!

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You saw my Stockings Gone Bold, right?  I shadow embroidered the name, and I promised to show you How to do Shadow Embroidery.

I pinky-promise.  I pinky-promise this is SO easy to do and it’s gorgeous!

Here is me keeping my promises, baby!

All you need is some very light cotton fabric, such as some Imperial Batiste, an embroidery needed and some embroidery thread.

Step 1

Print out your name in the size you need.

Tip: choose a somewhat wide or thick font so you can outline it easily.

Step 2

Place your printed out name under the fabric.

Step 3

Trace around the letters with a washable pen.

Step 4

Put your fabric in a quilting hoop.

Thread your needle with one strand of embroidery thread. {I like to iron mine out with the iron.  It just makes it super nice and neat.}

From the wrong side of the fabric, start by picking up a tiny thread on your fabric and secure your embroidery thread.

 

Step 5

Take you needle, entering the fabric very close to where it starts {if not the same spot}, take a stitch as shown below.

REMEMBER: This is working from the wrong side of the fabric. That MEGA very important!

Step 6

Take your needle across the letter and make a small stitch going back towards the entry point.

Step 7

Go back to the left side and repeat.

Always try to go back in where the last stitch ended.  This will give you a very nice outline.

 

And back to the right side.

And again to the left.

Back again to the right.  Are you getting it now?

See how the thread is filling in the letter?  This creates the shadow effect!

TIP: When you get to a curve, make tiny stitches on the inside {or concave} part of the curve and larger stitches on the outside {or convex} part of the curve.

Here is the right side of the fabric.  Cool, huh?

 

When you’re done, this is what the back will look like…

And the front… I actually used two threads to embroider the stockings because I wanted to make sure they were Bold enough.

And that is all. I love the effect and it only took me about thirty minutees to do each name…give or take a few.

What do you think?  Are you ready to tackle some Shadow Embroidery?  It’s awesome, yo.

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