London Embroidery School

Central London based Embroidery School

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Mother’s Day Gift Ideas

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Got a Mum who likes to make? This Mothering Sunday, why not treat her to the gift of a new skill with an embroidery kit and online class from the London Embroidery School?

With classes for a wide variety of stitching interests and levels, we’re sure we’ve got something to make you the golden child and give her hours of entertainment, satisfaction and a beautiful outcome to be proud of at the end of it.

Think about the Introduction to Embroidery Lily and Pomegranate Design if she’s brand new to embroidery, or the Goldwork Online 4 Part Class if she needs a new challenge. Our Flower Classes are great if your looking for a quicker make, achievable within an afternoon. And team up your kit choice with an outcome product to allow her to transform her make into a unique usable item.

fabric flowers, yellow flowers, barrette, fabric rose, outcome product, flowers, hair accessories, hair clip, hair pin,

Add a Barrette or comb to make the flowers into a hair accessory  or a long bar pin to make things into a brooch.

February’s Student of the Month

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February as always flew by as always, but it would seem that you all managed to find time for your stitching with all the submissions we had for student of the month. And so we have a new student of the month to announce…. @chlopargins

Chloe has been working away at her Goldwork Online Class Pear Design over the course of February and has been sharing images of the various stages and techniques she tackles.

As a Costumer, we are excited to see what she does with her new found goldwork skills.

As you can see here, she has really got into the couching and is bricking those stitches wonderfully.

We also love to see our students taking care of their works well, like taping the ends of the god threads before plunging to preserve them.

We can also see from her instagram that this is not her first foray into goldwork, having tried our Introduction to Goldwork Cherry Design at the start of the year. It’s wonderful to see people’s confidence grow from the intro kits onto the more challenging designs.

We also very much appreciate a little bit of geeking out about good working practises- like wrapping one’s embroidery frame. ”10 points to Griffindor!”

Cocktails and Cutwork anyone? It could catch on!

 

If you would like to be the first #studentofthemonth of 2021, use the hashtag #londonembroideryschool or tag us when sharing your photos from your London Embroidery School class or the things you have gone onto make following one of our class.

 

All Images courtesy of @chlopargins

Mother’s Day 2021 Organdie Roses

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With Mother’s Day just around the corner, we though we would share some of our favourite ways to style up the Organdie Rose to best suit her:

Attach it to Long Bar Pin for an easy way to add your gift to any outfit

Perhaps add to a sun hat as the weather starts to improve

Apply it to a Hair Barrette for a striking hair accessory

The French Twist is optional 🙂

Or grab a piece of ribbon and fashion it into a Corsage

A beautiful addition for any special occasion you might have coming up as things start to relax once again

The Organdie Rose Mini Kits are available in 5 colours so there is something to suit the taste of every mum.

 

Mother’s Day in the UK is Sunday 14th March this year, so don’t delay and get your kit and online class on its way so you have time to make her a thoughtful handmade present this year.

A Labour of Love

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If you’ve ever wondered about how a London Embroidery School class comes to be, the design and development process behind it then we have the answer for you. We have a new short video up on the youtube channel today, showing a little of the process behind the class and how we get it ready to share with you all.

Well to answer that, we need to go back to the beginning…

We start with a nice hot drink and a snack, because all good jobs start with a snack, right?

Then we are ready to begin the real work, whether there is already an idea floating around, or if we are starting from scratch, we do some research to get inspired and inform those seedlings of ideas.

Next, it’s time to start trying things out, where we might start with a paper sample version, much like toileing a garment to access the shape and validity of the approach. Accompanied by more nice drinks. From that we can make changes to make it better and sample it again.

Once we’ve got as far as we can with the paper, it’s time to try it in fabric and see how that reacts.

This sometimes means going back and making more changes now the fabric has provided extra information, and the pattern gets another upgrade. Like in this example, we might try it out on a different fabric this time to see what that does too.

When we think it might be there, it’s time to try a full sample in the fabric.

Taking lots of notes as we go along, it’s nice to see a piece start to come together. The building of the piece always leaves us so impatient to see the result.

It’s pretty rare to get everything spot on first time, so knowing there will likely be more than one sample gives us the opportunity to take some chances and try out so more unusual combinations.

First sample done! It’s good, but not perfect, so back to the drawing board we go, this time trying it out in a cotton so see how that reacts as well as makes the changes to the petals we desired and even playing around with some felt pen details on this one. Sampling takes away the necessity for it to be perfect just yet and allows us to focus on making it interesting at this stage.

 


It’s always a lot of work, but it’s a labour of love which we hope you will also enjoy.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

 

Camellia Online Class is Out Now!

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The much anticipated Camellia Online Class has come to the London Embroidery School. Heavily requested by our community, this online class will teach you to make the timelessly styling camellia design from easy to access items. If you have seen these fabric flowers before, they are usually made with heated shaping tools which are very niche, hard to get hold of and a little pricey so we have developed a pattern for you to create a similar effect without the hassle.

You can use your own materials and purchase the class only or grab one of our kits too and make it in the materials shown in the recording. Initially we will be launching this class in two colour ways of the sumptuous Boucles tweed with a leather version to follow in the near future.


During the class we will walk you through all the potential adaptations you could make to your design to create the best outcome for your fabric choice so that you can style the Camellia your way.

Items needed:
Fabric 25x25cm
Sewing Thread to match fabric colour (buttonhole thread if using leather)
Embroidery Needle No10 or Leather needle
Thimble (optional/ for leather )
(woven fabrics only)
Paper Petal Guide (sent to you with class email purchase)
Small Scissors–
PVA Glue (approx 40ml)
Modelling glue applicator (Leather only)
Small shallow container for PVA wash (woven fabrics only)
Gel Pen/ Fabric Marker / pencil
Iron on Backing (vilene) 25x25cm (open weave fabrics only eg boucles tweed)
Center embellishments (optional)
Access to an iron (open weave fabrics only)
A place to hang dry your PVA washed fabric (woven fabrics only)

January’s Student of the Month

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January is over- phew! And so we have a new student of the month to announce…. @hanlroberts


Hannah purchased our Goldwork Online Class and kit and has been working away on her pear in great detail.

I’m sure you will agree she has made a fantastic job of it and even though she says that the cutwork was tough, we think she should be very pleased with it.

Hannah is quite an accomplished stitcher from her instagram page, you can see she has turned her hand to lots of wonderful stitching kits, all of which could be adverts themselves !

Hannah’s finished Craftpod Kit

If you would like to be the first #studentofthemonth of 2021, use the hashtag #londonembroideryschool or tag us when sharing your photos from your London Embroidery School class or the things you have gone onto make following one of our class.

Hannah’s finished Emilie Ferris Kit

All Images courtesy of @hanlroberts

Goldwork Letter 3 is Out Now!

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Goldwork Letters Style 3: Cutwork with padding and Pearle Purl edging is here. The final step in our goldwork for lettering series aimed at those who have done some goldwork before and are ready to apply those skills more specifically. Taught by breaking the letters down into their characteristics, we discuss the intricacies of the elements you will face and how to deal with each of them as well as showing how to bring all those elements together into one considered, cohesive outcome.

There are no kits for this class as we encourage you to make your own creative material choices for a truly personalised outcome. Do check out the materials listed on the class for our guide to what you’ll need. Head over to the London Embroidery school website for all the details and access to our most technically advanced goldwork class to date.

In need of some Monogramming Inspiration?

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When you have worked hard on building up you stitching skill, having taken all the monogramming online classes and practised your techniques you will want to put them to good use right?


Let us take you through a little inspiration as you soak up some ideas about where you could apply your monogramming skills on items or gifts for your future projects. It is one thing to learn the skills on fabric, and quite another to be able to transfer them onto usable items such as jackets, accessories and keepsakes.

Once you have picked your item, you then need to decide on what will be written, the arrangement, font style and size. Hopefully taking a look at some of the possibilities might help you to start making the decision for your stitching. Follow the link so see the full video and absorb all those ideas!

Goldwork Letters 2 Out Now!

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Goldwork Letters Style 2: Couching and Overstretched Pearle Purl has arrived.

Bringing colour and texture to the party, this goldwork class for a lettering outcome is designed for those who have done a little goldwork before and want to step it up a gear. Taught by breaking the letters down into their characteristics, you can apply the approaches to the letter of your choosing, and it will arm you to be able to take on any shapes you might come across.

There are no kits for this class as we encourage you to make your own creative material choices for a truly personalised outcome, however we will guide you through what types you will need to have to hand. This makes it a great class for those who want to get started straight away, and also for using up some left over materials you might have from previous goldwork projects.
Head over to the London Embroidery school website for all the details and to start creating your own sophisticated goldwork letter piece.

 

Materials and equipment

  • Base fabrics (felt, melton is best fabric if you are thinking about make it into a patch) & Calico (medium tight weave – any Goldwork with Plunging technique includes requires a supporting base fabric unless you are working on very heavy non stretch fabric)
  • Pricker
  • Pounce
  • Tracing paper design drawn (printed out or drawn. Blue transferable paper work too so no need to prick & pounce)
  • Gel Pen/ Water soluble Pen (optional, pencil works fine if it’s light fabric)
  • Goldwork Thread: Passing (2g – Yellow Gold Passing used in the video) & Rococco (1m – Very Fine used in the video), Pearle Purl (1g) (Some letters use less or more) Japanese Gold Thread or Twists can be used too.
  • Needles: Embroidery/Chenille Needle (Embroidery No.10 used in the video) Chenille Needle for Plunging (No. 22 used in the video) (optional) & Curved Needle (optional)
  • Thread to match Gold Thread
  • Embroidery Stranded Cotton
  • Sewing thread to match the stranded cotton
  • Heavy/stronger thread (Extra Upholstery Thread used in the video. Top Thread/Buttonhole Thread are good too) (optional)
  • Goldwork Scissors (ideally separate from normal embroidery scissors as Golwork will blunt the scissors)
  • Thread scissors
  • Mellor/Stiletto
  • Wax
  • Pins
  • Embroidery hoop/frame (ideally clamp/seat/slate frame so your both hands are free)
  • Access to a printer or trace off a computer screen at 100%
  • Temporary adhesive spray, wall paper paste, sewing machine (all optional)

December’s Student of the Month…

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We have a new student of the month to announce…. @annbeckembroidery


Ann has been working hard for some months now on this beautiful box as a Christmas present, from original design to fruition. We have been watching eagerly from the sidelines and now as it is finished we certainly think she deserves congratulating!

Using a combination of silk shading, goldwork and beading, it makes for a truely stunning gift that’s we are sure will be very well received.

So, to Ann, look out in your email for your winners discount voucher and we hope to see more beautiful things from you!

If you would like to be the first #studentofthemonth of 2021, use the hashtag #londonembroideryschool or tag us when sharing your photos from your London Embroidery School class or the things you have gone onto make following one of our class.

 

All Images courtesy of @annbeckembroidery