First Time Doing Needlepainting Embroidery

First Time Needlepainting Embroidery Project

After years of having purchased this kit and keeping it on my to-do stash, I finally started and finished this embroidery project. 

This is a design from Tanya Berlin from Berlin Embroidery, a respected local artist with an incredible amount of experience, Tanya is well known in the embroidery world and often travels to teach workshops in other places. My original idea was to take some one on one classes with her, but timing was never on our side so I could never take them. 

I’ve mentioned before that I had some embroidery experience but it was a long time ago and not really in this style, so I went ahead and watched a few videos and searched for similar works, just so I could get an idea on how to start. The kit comes with almost everything you need, the design printed in a beautiful piece of fabric, all the floss, the needles and of course, detailed instructions (you need to add an embroidery hoop or frame).

When it comes to the actual stitching, other than the stem stitch and a some split stitch, the rest of the design is done in long and short satin stitch. This later one was not necessarily new to me, but the needlepainting or shading style was. Tanya suggests working in rows, for example, from the lightest to the darkest colours, to create a shading effect on the leaves and flowers. I’ve seen other artists who advise not to work in rows to prevent the severe lines between colours. I can see a lot of it in my project, but I do not attribute that to the technique itself but to my inexperience, something that hopefully with practice, will improve. 

One thing I found quite challenging, was the direction of the stitches. So until I become a real expert, I think it’s important to draw lines on each section to help guide with the direction of the stitch, otherwise it is going to look very messy. The design looks a bit intricate but precisely because of its small size of its elements, it was fast to fill and it also helped with the direction of the stitches because it was fairly easy to undo or to cover the mistakes. 

Tanya is available for ongoing critique while one is working with the project which I did not take advantage of. Quite honestly, I’m not the best virtual learner, though had I done it, I believe I would’ve had a much cleaner result.

I’m still quite happy with the final look, especially considering that this was my first time with needlepainting. I am already working on a second project from another artist, and I believe it is going much better. I hope to be able to show you soon.

Thanks for reading, see you next time

“Through his ‘artistic creativity’ man appears more than ever in the image of God”. St. John Paul II