Remember that to-do list of embroidery projects we chatted about the other day? Well, I’ve crossed one off – it’s this embroidered quote project for an upcoming article on Craftsy.

Here’s the finished quote and some reflections on it. I’ll tell you right off the bat that it’s not my Favorite Project that I’ve ever worked. I’ll tell you why!

Lorum Ipsum is embroidered on a yellow (bright yellow) piece of linen that I had in my scrap box. The finished embroidery is about 5″ square.

Now, normally, I really like embroidering lettering, quotes, text, etc., especially when I can go all-out on stitch, color, and thread choices. One of my favorite lettering samplers to work was The Quick Brown Fox for this series on hand embroidered lettering and text lessons.

With Lorum Ipsum, my goal was to use whatever stitches struck me, while working with the bright southwesty color palette for these embroidery threads we talked about last week, so that I could test the threads and see if I really like them (or not).

Hence, the garish… err…. bright colors.

I ended up just combining basic line stitches for the project – chain stitch, heavy chain stitch, backstitch, whipped backstitch, laced backstitch, Palestrina stitch, stem stitch.

There were a few other stitches and techniques I had planned to incorporate, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Can you guess why?

But I did gussy up the edge with a fun composite stitch – if you’ve been working through any of the Stitch Sampler Alphabet letters, you’re probably familiar with it!

I just love composite stitches!

And all in all, it should have been a really fun, relaxing project.

But this is The Thing, and I’ve said it before, and I’ll probably say it again (and again…and again):

The materials you work with on any type of embroidery project – whether it’s just a beginner project, strictly for the fun of it, or your Life’s Great Masterpiece – make All the Difference in the outcome of the project and in the pleasure (or frustration!) you experience while stitching it.

This is why I never advise beginners to start with generic craft floss or low quality fabric. Materials that don’t meet at least a basic standard of good quality lead to frustration while stitching, and produce a less than satisfactory outcome, even if your stitching is ok.

This doesn’t mean you have to use the most expensive fabrics or threads! It just means that you should always start with at least decent quality supplies, so that you achieve the best results you can, with the least amount of frustration.

So, to put it very bluntly: this floss was so very unpleasant to stitch with. I won’t use it again.

I learned a good lesson, though. It really doesn’t take a whole project to know whether or not you’re going to like a particular thread!

And thus ends one project from The List. Time to sally forth and tackle the next one, which I’m definitely looking forward to!

Enjoy your weekend!