How to Customize a Photo With Embroidery

Do you have a picture that you want to customize ? You want to make a creative gift ? To add color to a black and white picture ? To make a more personal postcard ? To put forward an element of a picture ? Maybe you just want to embroider a picture for the fun of it ? Then this Instructables is for you !

You can also adapt this tutorial to customize a printed T-shirt by skipping step 2.

• Needles
• Embroidery thread that either matches or contrasts with the picture
• A light pencil
• An eraser
• A straight edge 
• Masking tape
• Tracing paper
• And pictures, photos or postal cards ! The paper must be a little bit thick

Begin by choosing your picture, then tape the tracing over it. Using the straight edge trace around the picture with the pencil. Then trace around the important elements of the picture that you want to highlight. Make sure not to push too hard on the pencil so as not to damage the picture.

Now that all the important elements are drawn on the tracing paper, trace again with the straight edge 2-3 mm away from the previous lines. This is for limiting the area that will be embroidered. Embroidering too close to the edge could weaken and damage the picture. Now choose the precise area that you want to embroider. Here for example I choose to embroider everything outside of the ellipse.

Now that you know where you want to embroider, you can choose the pattern. It can be simple (just lines), geometric, in a spiral… whatever you want.

Trace on the tracing paper with precision.

Place the tracing paper over the picture to see if you like the results. You can also use color during this step to have a better idea of the final result. Don’t hesitate to repeat this part multiple times until you find a result that you really like !

Now that you have determined the final result, you have to determine where to place the stitches. This step is important because you need to anticipate all the points where the needle will go through the paper. For any straight line in your pattern simply put a hole at the beginning and at the end of the line. For rounded lines, the more they bend, the more you will have to put the points close to each other. But don’t put them less than 3 or 4 mm apart.

Overlay the tracing paper over the picture again, and using the needle make all the holes. It’s very important that you make the holes coming from the side of the picture ! When the needle exits the paper, it creates a bump, and you don’t want them to be visible.

Cut an arms length of thread and separate one or two strands from it. Pass the strands, throw the needle’s eye and make a small knot on the other end.

You can now begin to embroider !

Hold the paper with the picture towards you and link all the points following the pattern you make on step 2. Just like dot to dot pictures !

If your pattern includes bent lines, I recommend you use the whipped back stitch. There are many tutorials on the internet that will teach you the exact hand gesture better than I could. The idea is to make a classic back stitch but then roll the strand to smoothen the result. This helps hide the beginning and the end of the straight lines.

Make a small knot on the back of the picture when you don’t have any more strand.

Very important ! Don’t pull the strand too hard or you risk damaging the picture !

I’m sure that you have done great, you can now admire your results. You can also send it to a friend, put it on the fridge with a magnet, or even put it on a frame.