What hand embroidery equipment do I need?

The short answer is not a lot! There's so much available to buy for textile work, especially hand embroidery that it's hard to know what you actually need if you're just starting out. In this blog post I'll share my favourite hand embroidery equipment, which I feel are necessary to have.

Embroidery hoop - these help to keep your fabric tight and stops it from scrunching up when you embroider. I like to work with an 8 inch hoop as I find that it shows more of a design than a smaller hoop. Any larger and I find that my hand gets tired from holding it. You can buy frames that are floor standing to put hoops in. I buy my hoops from Lovecrafts online. Smaller hoops are available too. Hoops can also be used to display your work in as well.

Embroidery scissors and needles. Embroidery scissors are smaller than other scissors and are usually sharper; this makes it easier to snip the excess threads at the back of your embroidery. I like to use Stork scissors as I find that the shape of the scissors makes them easy to use and I can see exactly where I'm cutting. I have had mine for many years; you can buy them from Lovecrafts and many other fabric or haberdashery shops - if you're lucky enough to have one near to where you live!

Needles come in many different types and sizes and it's reasonably important to use the correct sized needle. The width of the needle should be roughly the same size as the width of the thread you are using. If the needle is much thinner than your thread it will fray and damage the thread as you take it through the fabric. If the needle is much wider than your thread it will leave holes that are visible in your fabric and the stitches won't sit nicely.

I buy my needles from Barnyarns and always buy the packs of embroidery/crewel needles as shown above as these work well with most of the hand embroidery that I do. I also have a pack (or three) of much finer needles and some darning or wool needles for other projects. It's possible to buy packs of assorted needles too.

Frixion Pen - I use this to transfer designs. These can be brought from most supermarkets and places such as The Works. These pens are heat removable, so when you have completed your embroidery you iron the back of the fabric and the pen marks disappear.

However, they are not made for use with textiles and so there are some drawbacks. On certain fabrics the pen marks don't fade - always do a test piece first. If you put your embroidery somewhere very cold the pen lines will come back and this time they aren't removable. Some people have told me that their pen marks have come back when their fabric has been in direct sunlight for a while.

There are other transfer pens out there, though they all have drawbacks as well as positives. I tend to use the frixion pen as it works for the vast majority of what I do. When I know it won't, I work by eye.

Threads - there's a lot of different types of threads to choose from! The main threads I use are stranded cotton, perle thread and textured thread.

Stranded cotton is made up of six strands of thread; you can use as many or as little threads as you like. The more threads you use the thicker the stitch will be, the lower the number of threads the thinner the stitch will be. Stranded cotton is shown in the image above.

Perle thread is a thicker thread and can't be split. There is perle thread on a ball in the very first image. This thread is spun differently to stranded cotton and makes the stitches a little bit more prominent and hold their shape well.

Textured threads are very textured and usually thicker. These can't be stitched in the normal way and so are couched to fabric.

I buy my threads from Lovecrafts online. They can also be sourced through many other online stores, including eBay as well as fabric and haberdashery shops.

I hope that has helped answer some questions - as ever I'm always very happy to answer any textile and embroidery questions you have so do feel free to ask. If you have any hand embroidery equipment you love to use let me know in the comments.