From Blank Canvas to Blooming Beauty: A New Embroidery Journey Begins

There’s a unique kind of thrill that comes with starting a new piece on my embroidery machine. It’s a mix of anticipation, curiosity, and just a touch of nerves—like opening the first page of a story you already know will be epic. I’ve just begun stitching a design inspired by a wild, overgrown corner of my garden, and already the blank stabilised canvas is slowly beginning to transform under the needle.

At first, there’s just a neutral background, a space filled with possibility. But stitch by stitch, colour by colour, it starts to bloom. Greens creep in—soft mossy tones, rich forest shades, sharp acidic hues—all layered and intermingled. It always amazes me how many versions of green exist, and how each one plays its own part in bringing the scene to life. I’ve chosen dozens just for this piece, to echo the depth and variety in my garden’s wild patch: tangled ivy, sun-dappled grass, and the bold reach of brambles.

This design will take over five hours to stitch. That’s without counting the inevitable pauses—snapped threads, bobbin changes, tension tweaks. There are 132 colour changes planned in this run alone. Each one carefully considered, each one playing its role in the tapestry of texture and light.

But the magic doesn’t start at the machine. This piece began digitally, long before a thread ever met fabric. I started with at least two photos—capturing angles, light, and detail—then carefully layered and edited them into a cohesive image. From there, the design is vectorised, shaped into lines and curves that the software can understand. Then comes the tricky part: converting it into a JEF file, a process that balances artistic intent with the technical constraints of stitch types, densities, and flow. Only after all that can I load it onto a USB stick and feed it into the machine, ready for the physical journey to begin.

And yet, despite the complexity, the planning, and the hours of setup, nothing beats the feeling of watching that first stitch land. It’s the start of something—something bright, textured, and entirely unique. That moment when the needle drops and the design begins to grow is like a garden coming to life all over again.

This wild corner of my garden is slowly becoming immortalised in thread. It’s going to be a long, intricate process. But I can already tell—it’s going to be worth every second.