How to Hand Embroider a Rose

Do you hate it when you just give out stuffed animals and boxes of chocolates on Valentine's Day? Are you afraid these gifts will make you look bad? Do you want something that will wow He/She? The solution to all these problems is to make a hand embroidered rose. This rose may also give the extra chance needed to have your Valentine impressed and thus say yes when you ask she/he out on Valentines Day.

The Materials for this Rose are cheap and easily found at most craft stores:

Red and Green Embroidery Floss (about $5-$10 dollars if you buy a set of floss) Found at craft stores
Craft Fabric
Needles
Small to Medium Sized Embroidery Hoop (price depends on the quality of hoop you want to buy and the sizes you want) (medium sized wood hoops cost about $5)

To find the rose image you want and one that is simple go on to Google images. Type in clipart rose and find one that you think is best but make sure that the image is simple. If the image is simple its much easier to put onto your fabric and to do the embroidery. If the image you choose is to small, copy the image and paste it onto Microsoft Word and enlarge it but don't make it to big or it'll take a long time to make and to trace on to your fabric.

To trace your rose on to the fabric get your computer screen as bright as you can get it. Get out a pencil and start tracing, color light though because dark pencil marking will look bad on your rose and is nearly impossible to remove. Any light pencil markings can be erased but any dark pencil markings will if erased look even worse. DO NOT TRACE HEAVILY!

I chose to do the stem stitch to make this rose because it can be used in nearly every embroidery project and its the only stitch I know. The stem stitch is also one of the simplest stitches to do and is learned very easily.
Before you do any stitch you need to separate the 6 strands that normally come in embroidery floss. Grab 2 strands and pull then proceed to the first step of the stem stitch

First, tie a knot of the very end of your embroidery floss

Second, Poke up through the fabric where you want to start on your rose leaf or pedal.

The Third step is to do your first stitch on you rose. Put you needle close to were you poked up your floss and pass through the fabric.

The 4th step will be the step you will repeat the most. Put your needle through the small hole left from the your first stitch. Repeat this until your rose pedal or leaf is finished then move on to the 5th step.

In your last stitch put your needle down the fabric. Then move onto the 6th step.

Now that you are at the bottom of you fabric start weaving through the stitches you have just made. It should only take about 2-5 weaves for each pedal of your rose, be careful not to pull your floss while you are weaving always it will look loss (which looks bad) . When you are finished with your weaving leave a "tail" at the end of your land weave. The "tail" should be about half the size of your thumb. The purpose of this "tail" is so that if some of your floss is loose you can pull on it and make it tight again, this makes the rose look much better.

Now you are finished with your handmade rose. It will impress nearly every Girl/Guy and make them know that you really thought of them instead of making She/He think that you wear cheap by just buying a box of chocolates. This Valentine's Day will now be remembered for years by He/She with this great rose. If your now Valentine wants, you can turn this rose into a small pillow or you can even frame the rose.

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