Beginners' Silk-Ribbon Embroidery: Five Easy Stitches

Threads Magazine, editor

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Vests come to life with asymmetrical floral designs embroidered with silk ribbon.

Sloan Howard

The basic straight stitch can be used for numerous effects.

Christine Erickson

Ribbon stitch makes great leaves or petals.

Sloan Howard

Vests come to life with asymmetrical floral designs embroidered with silk ribbon.

Photo: Sloan Howard

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by Karen Kieppe
from Threads #92. pp. 56-59

Silk-ribbon embroidery is a romantic, old art that uses ribbon, embroidery floss, and perle cotton to work beautiful floral motifs and decorative stitch patterns by hand on garments and accessories.

I love the antique quality of this form of embroidery, and I use it to embellish crazy-quilted bags and purses, as well as contemporary garments cut from a single fabric. Silk-ribbon embroidery is easy and fun to do, and even a novice embroiderer can create elegant floral arrangements and beautiful patterns with some simple stitches.

There are many different embroidery stitches, but I've found that just five basic stitches, used alone or in various combinations, can create a large array of floral motifs and stitch patterns. The ribbon stitch is for ribbon only, but the lazy daisy, straight stitch, French knots, and stem stitch can be made with ribbon or thread. Try them, and you'll see that the ribbon produces a different effect with each stitch.

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Comments (4)

shifa writes: hi! i love embroidery works very much i would like have more of these and ofcourse its really helpfull thanx
Posted: 11:48 pm on June 12th

dearly writes: thanks its really help me
Posted: 5:05 am on February 20th

Peeshy writes: I have never done SRE but would love to learn - what kind of a needle should I use?
Posted: 6:31 pm on November 17th

SusanGayle writes: I would love to take this up again but I can't find the ribbons anymore. I see some 2, 4, & 7mm but not 9 & 13 and no organza. I used Bucilla last time. That was all the was available in our area. Now the isn't any. Even the ones that pop up an a search don't seem to have many (or any).
Posted: 4:17 am on October 2nd

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