There is nothing more relaxing than a good embroidery session, and I felt it was time to take it up a notch. I have never embroidered anything other than fabric before and thought it would be good to give some photos a try. To get started I printed out some black and white headshots of myself that I thought would be fun to add a little something extra to. I ended up printing them pretty small (4×6) since I have never done this before. The small size made embroidering the entire photo more manageable as I was experimenting with a new process. It was really cool to be able to add different colors and textures onto the photo using the thread.

For my first photo I experimented with adding texture through patterns and different stitches. I embellished the shirt I was wearing with french knots and regular stitches while creating a textured background by adding vertical stripes. For this photo I really used the photo as a guide for the stitches and followed existing designs to add texture.

These turned out pretty good and give me a lot ideas for how I can use this for projects in the future. Now that I have figured out the process behind embroidering photos I would love to try something a little larger scale to end up hanging as an art piece. Maybe a landscape or something more abstract? What photo would you want to embroider? >>