Embroidered Snowflakes



Materials:

• fabric
• small embroidery hoop (I have sewn with and without hoops, with and with out interfacing. I have found that when starting out it is best to work on a light weight, not thin, material and hoops)
• embroidery needle(again the needle you pick is a personal preference. tapestry needles have larger eyes, but the shank of the needle is thicker, milliner needles are uniform in thickness but it can be difficult to find ones with larger eyes)
• skein of white embroidery floss
• silver embroidery floss
• beads

• pull thread from the back and insert about an inch away

• insert the thread again from the back and repeat as before first in thirds
• repeat with the three new stitches in between the others. Now you have a total of six stitches

• create a fly stitch between each of the inch "spokes" (bring needle through the top of one of the spokes. insert at the top of the adjacent spoke. take a "bite" of the fabric half-way between the two spokes and slightly lower than the top of the stitches. pull tight, and fasten the thread to the fabric.)
• repeat this five times

•  at each vertex create a detached chain stitch. (bring needle from back. insert again in the same hole but don't pull all the way back through. you should have about a 1/2 inch loop. come from the back and secure the loop with a small stitch.)

•  at the top of the longer chain stitches, sew another chain stitch, but this time, split and secure the sides to create a diamond. above the smaller chain stitches, sew a fly stitch.

•  Above is what the finished white snow flake will look like.

• to embellish, sew two fly stitches over the long chain stitches and one fly stitch over the shorter ones. do this in a contrasting color- the above is in silver.

• for fun, plastic imitation pearl beads were used to hide the center.
• get creative and add your own embellishments!

Although this may seem complicated at first, once you understand the basic stitches, the snowflake becomes one of the quickest and prettiest embellishments for winter themed projects.
I hope that you have fun sewing snowflakes!

 The above is a similar concept using only fly stitches. The silver embellishment is wrapped around the "spokes"

 This snowflake is a little bit more complicated. The scroll stitch was used for the smaller spokes and the v-shape on the taller spokes. The taller spokes are created with the detached chain stitch. The silver embellishments include the fly stitch on the taller spokes, and the detached chain stitch with the two extra darts (shown in the tutorial) as the border of the scroll stitches. Wouldn't it be pretty with beads in the center to cover up the nasty middle?

This one is very simple. It involves detached chain stitches for the spokes and a french knot in the center.

***If my instructions for the detached chain stitch or the fly stitch were confusing, there are many wonderful videos on YouTube which are very clear and simple to follow.***