Embroidered Family Portraits
Item #
302227297P156
SUPPLIES & TOOLS:
DIRECTIONS:
JOANN HACKS:
- Linen, 1/3yd
- Disappearing Ink Pen
- Embroidery Floss, Various Colors
- Embroidery Needle
- Embroidery Hoop
- Scissors
DIRECTIONS:
- Draft your family member portraits on a piece of paper, either individually in a simplified style or based on a photograph. Feel free to add whimsical additions (flowers, outfit accessories, outfit patterns, etc.).
- Cut each person out of the paper and reconfigure onto your linen. This is also a good time to play around with your final layout, giving the family members more or less space, and dropping in and moving around any details.
- Use a disappearing ink pen to trace around your paper cut-out. Either re-draw the details onto the linen, or cut out each shape within the portrait (hair, shirt, pants) and trace. Save your paper portrait cut-outs as you will need to retrace areas that disappear as you work on your embroidery.
- Place your linen drawing centered in your embroidery hoop, tighten the hoop, and pull taut.
- Begin anywhere, filling each shape in the portrait with embroidery floss, starting from one side of your outline and pulling to the other. This method will work fine for most shapes. However if it is a very wide shape, such as a full dress, you may consider breaking it down by drawing folds into the dress and embroidering the shapes of the folds instead of the full width of the dress.
- Leave a tail at the beginning and end with each new piece of embroidery floss to knot together.
- Continue embroidering each shape until complete!
JOANN HACKS:
- Instead of drawing the portraits freehand, you could also print out a family portrait at your desired scale and trace it using tracing paper or trace it using printer paper on a window.