I shared in my last post how I’m loving the new fabric Yuko Miki of Honeyberry Studios has created with her illustrations! As a gardener and fruit and veggie lover, I was a fan of Yuko’s Eat a Rainbow illustration as soon as I saw it. (I even bought a set of notecards featuring her designs!) So I knew her similar fabric, available on Spoonflower, would be perfect for some veggie garden inspired embroidery patterns.
Yuko's "Eat a Rainbow" fabric is available on Spoonflower!
I love to use words in my patterns, often in script or hand lettered styles, and I wanted to suggest some tips for different ways you can stitch your words when the letters’ lines vary in weight, as they do in the patterns featured here.
Combining the satin stitch and back stitch
One of my favorite ways to stitch scripts are with a combination of satin stitching and back stitching. In this technique, I use the satin stitch to embroider the thicker parts of the letter, and the back stitch to embroider the thinner strokes that connect to other letters. (At times I’ve even tried to satin stitch the thinner strokes - it’s quite a labor of love!)
You can use the satin stitch and back stitch to hand embroider script letters.
By combining the satin stitch and back stitch in the above “Veggies are my Friends” pattern, it creates a smooth transition between the letters and I almost feel as if I’m writing with the thread itself as I stitch.
Using the back stitch as a fill stitch
As an alternative, the back stitch can be used as a fill stitch rather than to create a single line or an outline. If you are new to embroidery, or you aren’t a fan of the satin stitch, this can be a nice alternative to stitching thicker letters, though it is more time consuming and uses more embroidery floss. Below I used the back stitch to fill in the letters by stitching line after line next to each other. I tried to line up each segment of the back stitch so the stitches had an even appearance, and I’m pretty happy with how they turned out in this “I’ll be in the garden” pattern.
Alternatively you can use rows of back stitches as a fill stitch.
Heavy scripts and bold letters work beautifully on Yuko’s colorful Eat a Rainbow fabric, and these free patterns can be embroidered with either method listed above. You can download them right here and stitch up some fun embroidery hoop art or even a tea towel for your kitchen! And if you need a refresher on how to do each stitch, watch my how-to videos here.
Do you have a favorite way you like to hand embroider your letters? Let me know in the comments!