with Gwen Studios
Ribbon Embroidery is a beautiful craft, but using silk ribbons is expensive. If you are starting out or practicing, sheer ribbon can be a great alternative. I used sheer ribbon from Gwen Studio for this floral piece. I even colored white ribbon green which allowed me to make ribbon whatever color I needed. That in itself is a great cost-saving.
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Your local Walmart stores carry Gwen Studios products. I am on the Gwen Studios design team where I am provided ribbon to work with each month.
The Process:
I first embroidered the roses with the red ribbon. My original plan was to use green satin ribbon for the greenery but it presented too thick for my fabric.
The white sheer ribbon is made green by applying Marabu Fashion Spray (see how it was done in the video tutorial below). This worked really well. Now I have a way to create a variety of different colored ribbons as needed. I can buy a white ribbon and make it any color with paint or dye. And it was fun to be a little messy!
After making the ribbon green, I embroidered the leaves and stems. I just need to add pink buds to the stems on either side of the arrangement.
There are a few different ways to finish off embroidery work. I chose to do a running stitch around the embroidery hoop to gather the excess fabric on the back of the hoop.
- Notice the modeling of the fabric? In person it is less noticable. There’s something with how the fabric was made and the lighting created really interesting modeling effects on the surface in photography and video.
To hide everything, I cover the back with felt. Adhesive-backed felt made it easy to draw around the embroidery hoop onto the paper backing. Then I cut inside my pencil line, peel away the paper, and stick the felt in place. As a final step, I chose to secure the tightening mechanism at the top of the hoop with a bit of super glue so it will not come undone.
Watch the video below to learn how to sew each stitch used for this piece.
Video Tutorial:
The close-up above shows the depth of the different stitches. Which stitch is your favorite?