Some Completed Embroidery Projects

Helloooo, hope this blog post finds you well :)

Embroidery, sewing, needlework, cross-stitch, blackwork, I love trying my hand at a variety of different styles and techniques, some more successfuly than others. These finished objects span from about 2020 to 2025 and I'll show them chronologically and talk through some of the decisions behind their creation. They're not my only finished works, but the ones I still have my hands on. Looking back at this collection is interesting and it's fun for me to see how my tastes, skills, and style have changed over time. 

2020: Toothless

At the height of the pandemic, I thought a great use of my time was re-reading my favourite books from childhood. One of those series' was How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell. Nowadays, most people are only familiar with the movies, but the books still hold a really important place in my heart. What always charmed me the most was Cowell's graphite-esque illustrations, one of which really caught my eye as I was re-reading. This embroidery is a copy of that drawing, which depicts Hiccup's first time seeing Toothless at the bottom of his dragon-knapping basket. The text reads "the most extraordinary thing about this dragon was how SMALL it was." The original Toothless, unlike his large movie star counterpart, is a grouchy little guy with whom Hiccup argues almost constantly in dragonspeak but who is ultimately loyal and brave. He's always been my favourite little dragon from fiction ever. 

2021: Raccoon with a Drum

This was around Christmas time and was meant to be part of a three part series of ornaments (two of which I never made, obviously). I'm still very proud of how clean the satin stitching (the long stitches in a single direction) is in the face and the jacket. There's not much story here, in comparison to the other ones, although I think this was mainly inspired by that one Over the Garden Wall episode. I'm just really pleased with this cute little guy. Maybe one day I'll embroider the other members of his little band (a banjo playing bear and a possum with an accordion) but probably not. I think their time has passed.

2022: Dracula

This is the first of three projects I created as part of my undergrad degree in English lit, and this shows only a part of a longer tapestry that was meant to mimic parallax or "crankies", which were rolls of images on paper that would be turned to reveal a story. Very popular in the Victorian period, which is why this one features a scene from Bram Stoker's Dracula, namely the scene where Dr. Seward is describing his patient's, Renfield's, increasing obsession with capturing and eating a variety of insects and animals. I remember this project taking me the full three week winter break to finish and even now I'm not entirely pleased with how it turned out. But it was an interesting experience!

2023: Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister

The second school project was created as part of a class on the Secret History genre of books that were popular in the 1700s as a means of covertly spreading propaganda and gossip about royalty or nobility. The book that its based on, Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister by Aphra Behn, is not exactly as incestuous as it sounds, at least to a modern audience. Back then, once you married someone, you were considered a blood relative of their family. "His sister" was really his wife's sister. She was also a seventeen year old, while he was in his thirties or forties, which in my opinion is grosser, but the book is an interesting read regardless. At the time, women wore pockets like these underneath their dresses, and the point of this project was to investigate this space as a private, secret place to keep (for instance) love letters from your brother-in-law. You can't see it in this photo, but the liner on the inside of the pocket is patterned with handwritten text and hearts (like the letters). I'm very proud of how this turned out! I tried to use embroidery techniques popular during the georgian period, like the lattice stitching in the center of the flowers as well as imagery popular in other secret histories, like the snake.

2024: Juliet's Cap

Okay, last school project! This was for a Shakespeare class, and is based on Romeo and Juliet. Caps like these would've been worn by a majority of if not all women, although only nobility likely would've had it embroidered. The imagery on it, a fool's staff, pedlar fruit, a house, and tennis, were all references drawn from Juliet's lines about her concerns about marriage and the future (including her own burdgeoning sexuality), externalizing some of her inner thoughts. This style is called Elizabethan blackwork, and you can find some really impressive examples of extant blackwork from the Victoria and Albert Museum, if you're interested!

2025: Gold Belt

And the last finished embroidery project! This is a gold satin belt I sewed as part of a renn faire costume, and is based on an image from an old manuscript that I found on Pinterest. Likely it has some kind of symbolic meaning but I couldn't find it. If any history nerds can help, I would appreciate it! This was done very delicately with single strand cotton thread in a stem stitch, which was new to me, and very frustrating to keep looking smooth and continuous. While this is obviously zoomed in, the actual piece is only 8-10 cm or 3.5-4 inches in both directions. I'm very proud of her, even though I can see her flaws.

Thanks for reading this and coming along on my trip through the past five years. Even though I've been working at these skills for a long time, I'm still clearly no expert, but it feels great to see the progress and to get excited about all the stuff I'll make in the future :)