How to Use Hand Embroidery as Home Decor for Beginners

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Hand embroidery as home decor is a great addition to your home! It adds charm, personality, and thoughtfulness to any space. Check out our list of ideas in this post on how to use hand embroidery as home decor for beginners!

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One of the best things about embroidery as a hobby is that it is versatile! It is often used on clothing items, but can make for adorable home decor as well.

Here at Home Sweet Harps, you have seen a lot of patterns designed for clothing items as well as basic hoops, but embroidery can be so much more!

Add your pieces to frames, hang it on a shelf, or include it in a table setting – the possibilities are endless!

A few ways I use hand embroidery as decoration in my home:

• Stitch your home
• Handwriting pieces
• Birth flower hoops
• Your home state
• Napkins/tablecloths

First, let’s talk some basic materials you will need for these simple embroidery projects. As you dig deeper into the embroidery world, there are a lot of materials you could buy, but truly, I keep things simple, and I have embroidered for several years now!

Here’s my basic, inexpensive list of supplies:

• Fabric/Material – You can add embroidery to almost all materials, but a good fabric like this is helpful when you are beginning.
• Needles
• Embroidery Hoops – I like to use a basic 6″ hoops as I’m sewing, but I use 4″ hoops for the final product. I also have grown fond of these imitated wood hoops, especially the oval shape!
• Floss
• Embroidery Pens to draw or trace your design or
• Water Soluble Printable Paper
• Scissors – I started with just a small pair of scissors we already had at home, but you can buy some  basic embroidery scissors. 

A Few Basic Stitches:

I am not going to go into all of the possible embroidery stitches today, but I would like to give you a few that I use in every embroidery project! Here are three stitches I would start with:

• Stem Stitch
• Lazy Daisy
• Satin Stitch
• *Bonus* the French Knot – a little trickier, but adds a fun element to your piece!

(You can check out my “Simple Stitches” series over on YouTube for some basic embroidery stitching tutorials!)

Now that you have your materials and stitches, let’s dive into this list of how to use hand embroidery as home decor for beginners!

Stitch Your Home

What better way to add embroidery to your home decor than with an embroidered piece of your house?!

When we bought our home, I made a simple 6″ hoop design of our house. It looks complicated, but it only takes a few simple steps:

1. Draw your house. No need to be intimidated by this step! Remember, it’s just a simple, 2D drawing, so grab your ruler and design your home using basic shapes.
2. Transfer design to hoop. You can either copy and print your drawing to water soluble paper, or you can trace the design directly onto your fabric.*
3. Pick floss. Choose floss that best matches your home.
4. Get stitching! I used a stem stitch to outline my pre-drawn shapes, and satin stitch to fill them! Stitches like the french knot are great for flowers and bushes!

This piece was so fun to create, and now sits on a shelf in our living room!

Handwriting Pieces

I love a good handwriting piece, especially if it’s my kids’ writing!

I created these precious Child’s Handwriting Embroidered Ornaments last holiday season, and fell in love!

These projects can be displayed year-round in a hoop, or even hung in a frame. What a great way to remember this season of your child’s life!

Birth Flower Hoops

If you have been around Home Sweet Harps for long, you know birth flower hoops and shirts are kind of my thing.

I’m a mom of 4 who loves florals, so these have been my favorite projects over the years!

I tend to draw my own florals by hand, however, if there is a particularly difficult flower, I try and find a drawing online and trace it.

My shop is full of birth flower hoops and shirts, and I also created a FREE cosmos pattern for the arrival of our upcoming October baby – perfect for a name announcement!

Your Home State

This project is so simple, and a nod to your home state!

For the pattern, I simply found an outline of our home state on my iPad, placed my fabric over the top, and traced our state onto the fabric with an embroidery pen.

Then I used the stem stich around the border, and a lazy daisy stitch to create a heart on our hometown.

Easy peasy!

Napkins or Tablecloths

Cloth napkins and tablecloths are a great way to add embroidery to your home decor.

Our favorite post, Hand-embroidered Christmas Tree Napkins DIY is simple and beginner-friendly and can be used year round!

Add pumpkins and leaves in the fall, or Easter bunnies in the spring…the possibilities are endless!

So there you have it! Our simple list of how to use hand embroidery as home decor for beginners.

Happy stitching!

Questions:

How can I create hand embroidery designs?

There are so many free and affordable embroidery designs and patterns all over the internet (we have tons of freebies on this site!), but creating your own design is simple, and it guarantees you get exactly what you want.

I use ProCreate on my iPad to create patterns that I can share with this community, however, it can be much simpler than that.

If you don’t feel comfortable drawing by hand, you can piece together shapes and images online, or even use coloring pages as patterns!

How do I trace an embroidery pattern onto my fabric?

When I draw a design on paper, I simply place it behind the fabric in my hoop, hold it up against a window, and trace! Just make sure you make your lines dark enough to see through the fabric.

You always have the option to print on water soluble printer paper, if you have a digital pattern.

What are some examples of embroidery projects?

There are so many great projects out there, and here are just a few from us at Home Sweet Harps!

• Women’s Hand Embroidered Sweatshirt Sleeve Cuff
• Embroidered Paper Cards
• Embroidered Paper Bookmarks
• Simple Hand Embroidered Christmas Gifts

I hope this post has been helpful as you look to add hand embroidery as decor in your home!

For more embroidery ideas, check us out over on Instgram, and tag us in your projects!