Accomplishment, inspiration, frustration – all words that come to mind after I spent the past month trying out embroidery. And let me be perfectly clear I mean good old-fashioned, patience testing, bleeding fingers, 100% by hand embroidery. Just a needle, thread, fabric, and the kind of stubborn determination that eventually leads to sore fingers and a newfound respect for something so unassumingly complicated and simultaneously simple.
I imagined embroidery would be immediately relaxing after falling down a rabbit hole of online videos depicting people sitting peacefully, stitching pretty patterns into cloth while time drifts by. To me it was the kind of hobby that would pair well with a quiet evening and your favorite comfort beverage – tea, coffee, hot cocoa. And it is – just not at first.
Embroidery first and foremost is a lesson in patience and as my mom always said patience is not a disease I was inflicted with.
What those cottage-core, thirst traps failed to show is the learning curve for embroidery.
Learning how to pull a single thread from a jumble in just the right way to prevent it from tangling and somehow still managing to get it tangled. Learning there will be knots and not the knots you want or where you want them to be. Learning to make sure you have an updated prescription on your eyewear before eyeballing where you think a stitch needs to be, because no matter how neat and orderly tutorials make it seem, stitches have an unnatural ability to wander off course when being guided by beginner hands.
Somewhere between the third tangled thread and the eighth crooked stitch it became clear that embroidery is less about perfection and more about persistence.
After all that learning, the most important tip I can provide is that thimbles should not be considered optional. In my beginning delusion, my greatest misstep was believing thimbles were quaint little accessories. They should not be considered either quaint or optional. Following a particularly gruesome attempt at a design requiring – dare I say – too many french knots which left tiny drops of blood on the fabric I was converted into a full-fledged believer in the importance of thimbles.
Over the course of a month, the hobby that once felt awkward began to feel familiar. Stitches became more consistent. Patterns began to resemble what they were supposed to. More than anything my appreciation for the craft became undeniable. I thought embroidery was just a quaint hobby from another era. Now, after a few pricked fingers and a lot of practice, I understand why people fall in love with it. It’s both creative and challenging.
Once you find your way past the minor frustrations and learn to keep a thimble nearby that’s where the calm lies. There is something deeply satisfying about the back and forth rhythm of the needle and thread, the blank canvas of fabric slowly transforming into a work of art, and the way every stitch – especially the imperfect ones – tell a story. Colors build into shapes, shapes become designs, and before you’ve bled through your first adhesive bandage there is something tangible to show for your effort.
Embroidery, it turns out, isn’t just about decorating fabric. It’s about slowing down, focusing on small details, and learning patience one stitch at a time.