London Embroidery School

Central London Embroidery School

flower

New Organdie Rose Colours

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Seeing as you all seemed to enjoy our organdie roses class and kits so much, we have been very much looking forward to sharing with you the news that are expanding our colour range. In addition to the lovely sunshine yellow we started with, we will now be stocking mini kits in 4 other colours, Rosewood Pink, Terracotta orange, Seafoam Green and Lavender Lilac.

As you can see these colours are great to mix together or match to you own colour scheme. The sculptural nature of the organdie roses means that you can manipulate them to be as big and open, or newly blooming a flower as you wish. Where do you plan on using your organdie roses, I’ve got mine earmarked for millinery, table settings, bouquets, hair accessories, corsages….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CyZrCBNATo&feature=youtu.be

Find these in the kits heading of online classes on the london embroidery school website to have your mini kits sent to you at home.

New: Chiffon Roses Online Class

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Following the success of the Valentino Roses Online Class (still available) , we have a new class to bring you today, Chiffon Roses Online Class!

These 3-D flowers are very soft and sit high from the base so they have real impact when applied. In this video we will talk you through manipulating the fabric, adapting the draft and stitching your rose in real time with us.

As you may not have the right bits at home already for this one, there are two kits available to go along side the class, the Deluxe kit (£20) for those who need all the equipment and materials, and the Mini kit (£5) if you just need the materials. Kits will be delivered by post both UK and worldwide.

Image from Deluxe Kit

 

Check out the taster video to see what it is all about…

All these roses need now to bloom, is you!

 

 

Valentino Roses Online Class Guide

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Today we wanted to share with you a little sunshine in the form of something fun for you to make with what you have to hand at home. Valentino Roses are one of our longest running classes, where we make these gorgeous little silk flowers. We have been beavering away making the first London Embroidery School online class video which is now available on youtube so we can make the roses alongside each other and talk you through our process. Follow the link to the class when you are ready, you will find the list of materials and instructions below in case you get stuck at any point. Remember to pause the video as you go along if you need some more time to keep pace with the steps. We hope you enjoy making valentino roses with us.

 

Things you will need:

Fabric for your rose (lightweight) – ideally Organza (50x15cm); other options- tuelle, chiffon, muslin anything lightweight and flexible (likely to be sheer)

Base Fabric (medium/heavy weight) – ideally a non stretch woven like cotton (fit to our hoop size) or felt (10x10cm)

Thread- Match colour to your lightweight fabric

Needle- Sharps or similar- size you feel comfortable threading up

Scissors- Fabric and Paper

Paper

Pencil

Ruler

Pins

Embroidery Hoop (optional)- regular hoop, table clamp frame, seat frame

Laying tool (optional)- mellor, stiletto, awl

Step 1: Drafting you Valentino Rose Petal Guide

  • Draw 2 parallel lines measuring 6cm long each, 4.5cm apart
  • Add a smooth curve to join the ends of the parallel lines together
  • Cut around your template

Step 2: Prepping your Fabric

  • Frame up your base fabric into your embroidery hoop and pop to one side for later (see Pro Tips: Framing up a Round Frame blog for further help) or
  • If your using felt/fabric not on a hoop, just keep your base fabric to one side for later
  • Take your lightweight fabric and fold the fabric along the length, each fold a little wider than your petal guide
  • Fold to the end, min of 8 folds
  • Pin your guide in the middle of your folded fabric
  • Cut around the guide
  • Remove the pins and guide

Step 3: Making the Petals

  • Thread up your needle- comfortable length, single thread, knot the end
  • Fold fabric cut out in half along the length of the petal
  • Running stitch along the whole of the raw edge of the folded petal, starting in the corner of one side- along the curve, long straight edge, along the other curve and finishing at the otherside corner
  • Knot off the thread, cut off any excess thread ends

Step 4: Sewing your center

  • Thread up your needle, single thread, comfortable lenght, knot in the end
  • Anchor your thread in the center of your fabric with a couple of small stitches
  • Take one of your prepared petals and roll it tightly along the stitched edge (stitched edge will be the bottom)
  • Hold firmly with one hand and stitch onto the frame where you anchored your thread
  • Stitch the whole way around the bud till it stands up right

Step 5: Sewing on the petals

  • Starting close to where the downward slope of the bud finished, stitch your first petal down from the corner so that the petal sits close to the bud.
  • Allow the body of the petal to face outwards from the bud so the raw edge is in towards the bud
  • Stitch just above the running stitch line on the petals using pin tuck stitches (coming up and down through pretty much the same point
  • Tuck any raw edges that escape in towards the center of the flower so they become hidden
  • Continue to the other corner
  • Repeat for the rest of the petals, paying attention to the start and finish points of the petals so they look like they are in a nice place (so all your downward slopes arent on the same side of your flower
  • This will change everytime as the line your stitch around the bud becomes larger and larger as the flower builds
  • On your final petal tuck the corner right into the previous petal so any raw edges are hidden
  • You can grab a tiny bit of the previous petal and pull that down over the finish for an extra tidy look

Step 6:Finishing off

  • If your center looks a bit too proud, bring the needle up through the center of the bud and go back down through the center
  • Gently pull the thread which will have caught a little of the body of the bud, pulling it down and making it less proud
  • Adjust until your happy with the finished effect, then knot off your thread
  • Remove from the frame and using a pencil on the back, mark a light circle outside the flower approx 3mm clear of your flower and stitches
  • Cut around the edge carefully with your scissors, keeping clear of your petals on the right side
  • Tuck under the excess fabric (follow link for Pro Tips just on ths finish), on the bottom side of the rose using small stitched to secure it to the underside of your rose, you will create some tucks as you go to gather the excess of the circle
  • Stitch your now freestanding rose onto your chosen item, brooch pin, hair clip etc

Don’t be afraid to make some chances once you have mastered the techniques used for these roses, change the colour, size and fabric for different variations on the valentino rose.

We’d love to see how your roses went, so please share your makes with us, you can find us on instagram @londonembschool, Facebook : London Embroidery School or email us: classes@embroidery.london

 

 

 

 

Show us what you got!

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Here at London Embroidery School we LOVE to see our students work! From our classes and especially what you go on to create after!

Share you work with us for a chance to be selected as student of the month and a chance to win 10% off on the shop. Which can be used on all equipment, materials and classes.

Send us your work via facebook, instagram, or email! Feel free to tell us a little about yourself and show off your skills! Remember to tag London embroidery school, and use the hashtag #londonembroideryschool or #lesstudent

Your work will be featured across all of our networks.

 

 

From Sketch to Stitch

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Machine and hand embroidery is an area that I have always been looking at exploring a lot further when it comes to idea sampling. So when I had to create a range of samples for a project this was a perfect opportunity.

I had recently attended a silk shading weekend class with the lovely Sonja at London Embroidery School and have always used my own adapted version of the technique, mainly because I had never been taught the right way to do it, for shading and mixing colours. The class covered a lot of points I had never considered would affect the way the stitching lays and the starting details for silk shading, or sometimes called needle painting.

You can have a look at my blended square below as an idea of what we got up to, as well as good conversation and wonderful teaching the relaxed environment really topped it all of and made the day most enjoyable!

I chose colours that were fairly similar in tone as I wanted to create the most blended square I could but the technique works with anything, I snuck a photo of the sample teaching piece Sonja was working on, doesn’t it look fabulous?

 

 

Armed with what I had newly learnt I started off with a sketched design and coloured it loosely for reference of where the colours would mix taking inspiration from the protea flower.

 

I decided the background would the neatest done on machine and give me that contrast that I was looking for, so I drew it up in our CAD software and stitched it out, this also gave me a chance to scale my drawing so I could see how much space I would be working with for the flower.

 

 

Once stitched out, I transferred the flower design onto the material and started to build the colour up, as you can see from the photos I build my colour up differently to how silk shading is taught but I was keeping in mind all of the things taught to achieve the best blend and finish to the embroidery.

 

 

Since I am a magpie when it comes to stitching I had to add some rough purl onto one of the

shapes, however I feel like a goldwork class is now in order as my lines could be straighter!

By Charlotte Pearson

More information on our courses mentioned here!

Silk shading 

Goldwork

Machine Embroidery

Brand New Flower Making Courses!

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Just to let you all know we have just launched a new exciting flower making course which is available at all levels:

In this class our tutor Cecile who has been trained at the famous Lemarie Studio in Paris and is a Couture Milliner by trade, will teach you the bespoke couture flower making process with traditional tools and techniques!
See below:
In these classes you will be taught how to make a variation of beautiful flowers and the course will explore techniques in cutting silks and then hand dyeing them. By the end of each class you would have learned how to prepare and create own bespoke Lily
or Peony
or Camillia and Poppy Flower.

Looking at the history of flower making, artificial flowers have been around for at least 3000 years. They were mentioned in the Old Testament – Book of Kings, when the Queen of Sheba tested Solomon with various riddles to see if he is wise and worthy. In one test, she asked him to distinguish which of the twelve lilies are real. Solomon observed that Bees would only settle on the real flowers, ignoring the artificial ones.

Another example is during the middle ages. Nuns begun making artificial flowers from silk to decorate church statues with flowers during the winter, while relying on fresh flowers during the summer. It soon became a church regulation that only silk or metal flowers were to be used for decorating altars.

In the 19th Century, flowers were used more often in fashion: to decorate clothing, for hat trimmings and in artful hairstyles which then spread throughout the world.

Elie Saab Haute Couture Fall/Winter 2016-17 show

Elie Saab Haute Couture Fall/Winter 2016-17 show