The Unique Art of Embroidery is a creative and rare form of art medium. Art comes in all different kinds of style mediums such as oils, acrylics, watercolors, charcoal, chalk pastels, spray paint, and pencil. Some more artistic art mediums can include marble, steel, and wood used for sculpting your work. Embroidery although being a rarer form of art medium is loved all over the world. If you’re interested in learning more about this wonderful yet unique art medium, here are some interesting things you might want to know about The Unique Art of Embroidery.

What is Embroidery art?

If you’re a beginner of Embroidery, it is important to first know what you will be getting yourself into. The embroidery art is a range of specific techniques mostly used within traditional artwork. This art form is the craft of decorating fabric using a needle, thread or yarn. Pearls, Beads, and sequins are commonly used when decorating your fabric. This craft is now mostly seen being used on dresses, hats, jackets, shoes, blankets t-shirts, denim jackets, and golf shirts. But artists everywhere have been taking Embroidery to an entirely new level by creating artwork that will blow you away.

Types of tools used and needed for Embroidery

The tools used for Embroidery can be dangerous so be careful when creating your artistic vision in this medium. There are multiple types of Embroidery art. Digital Embroidery art, Machine Embroidery art and more. But the classic tools used for Embroidery art are just a needle, thread and hoops and frames. Though there are many different types of tools that are used for this beloved art form, they are used depending on what you’re trying to create. These few tools are just the start of the tool list. When using needles for Embroidery there is a large variety to choose from depending on your artistic image.

These special types of needles help to make pushing the thread through the fabric in an easier manner than just a regular sewing needle. The top three most used needles for Embroidery include the embroidery needle, tapestry needle, and the milliner needle. In this country, the most used needle is the embroidery needle.

Tapestry Needle

The tapestry needle is the thickest needle used for embroidery art. This needle although shorter than the embroidery needle, has a bigger eye at the end of the needle and a blunt tip. This helps get the thread through open holes within the weave of your design easily. This type of needle is also used in mostly counted cross-stitching and needlepoint.

Embroidery Needle

The embroidery needle has an eye that is longer than a regular sewing needle, allowing an embroiderer to carry multiple strands of colored thread.  Most embroiderers use a variety of needles, including the crewel needle for yarn, tapestry needle for yet thicker things like ribbon, occasionally a milliner needle.

Milliner Needle

This is the longest needle out of the three. The eye of this needle is more circular while the other two needles are more oval-shaped. The eye and the shaft of this needle are also the same sizes which help to create the perfect stitches and knots with your thread in an easy and smooth way. This is a great needle for specialized knots, like bullion knots.

Types of Stitches

Embroidery is not just taking thread and tying it up into different sized knots. There are specific needle techniques that are used to give different textures and depth to the art you’re creating. Some of these techniques require knowledge on how to create different knots with the needle. Some of these knots include French knots, cast-on knots, and bullion knots.

French Knots

This specific type of knot is used mostly for decoration on the fabric being used for your art platform. Like most knots, this knot is created by a series of twists and loops by the needle two or three times and tightened. When putting together, a bunch of these knots together can help make beautiful textures used for designs involving flowers and other forms of nature.

Bullion knots

This knot is not only known as the bullion knot but is also commonly called the caterpillar knot. This interesting stitch is used to make simple motifs. This elongated knot when bunched together is meant to create dense textures for your Embroidery art. Known very well in Brazilian Embroidery, this stitch helps to provide your artwork with a more 3-D effect. Using a Milliner needle is best when trying to perform this stitch. It helps to pass the thread through the cloth and knot. Another plus to using this needle when creating this knot is that the needle is the same length throughout the entirety of the needle. This gives you a straight and smooth needle and thread insert.

Sneak Peak on Digital Embroidery

Digital embroidery is the art of Embroidery at a whole new level. Digital Embroidery is when you produce objects from a computerized image turning them into a work of art. It is doing something similar to NASA or another big corporation that provide cloth-like patches for their team or group. But with Digital Embroidery art this technique is used, uniquely by me, for creating embroidered sculptures. So now that we understand what digital Embroidery art is but how do you create digital embroidery art? Well, there are multiple software packages that you can use to start off with. Examples of software include Hatch Embroidery by Wilcom, Embrilliance, Perfect Embroidery Pro, Premiere Embroidery and others. Hatch is the one I use the most.

Contact Susan Hensel

Art can be interpreted and created in so many ways it’s hard to keep track of all the methods for creating artwork. Art is whatever you want it to be and you can express any emotion or story you please. There is no “one way” of interpreting art. Creating and learning new ways to do things can be fun and exciting. Stick around to read Susan’s next blog on “Top Facts You Should Know When Beginning Embroidery Art”. Email Susan here if you would like to learn more about The Unique Art of Embroidery and get to know a well-known Embroidery artist. www.susanhenselprojects.com