Have you ever wanted to try something new within your favourite hobby?

Wanted to push yourself just a little more?

This summer I wanted to step out of my comfort zone with our summer seasons knitting club. I’ve long been an admirer of embroidery, but the only time I have tried more traditional embroidery on fabric, I found it quite hard on my eyes. The small size of the needle for embroidery was difficult to work with, even though I liked the finished effect.

Fast forward to last year when I started seeing embroidery on knitting everywhere! Did you see it too? I suddenly realized that embroidery can be used in a whole variety of ways outside of the more traditional style. Because embroidery was fairly new to me, and perhaps to you as well, I wanted to make it as simple and foolproof to work as possible.

Summer Seasons Club Patterns

This is why I’ve opted for the Summer Seasons knitting patterns to use slip stitch pattern stitches. These created elongated stitches on the front of the work which you can use to run yarn under for your embroidery. This means that you don’t have to push the needle all the way through your work and it makes it really easy to change your mind and easily pull out the embroidery thread if you want. It’s a bit like yarn doodling. Try it and if you like it, it stays. If not, remove and try again.

The Clodagh Scarf

The first of the patterns that I did was the Clodagh Scarf. The lightweight Biches & Bûches yarn makes an amazingly floaty, airy summer scarf. Normally I wouldn’t associate a scarf with the summer, but in this fabric it’s actually ideal!

Here you’ll knit the scarf from one end to another and alternating between panels of Pillar Stitch and a Double Woven Stitch. There are three panels of each at the end of the scarf with stockinette stitch in the middle.

I’ve used the Fyberspates Gleam yarn to work the embroidery over these sections. Because this is a lace-weight yarn, it’s very delicate, creating a fine woven feel to the embroidery. I have used a single strand for this embroidery and the full effect is created by building up row after row of embroidery in different colours. If you wanted to use double-stranded for this, you would create a less subtle and more obvious embroidery stitch. It would be different, but just as beautiful!

For the embroidery, I’ve used a combination of square waves across the Pillar Stitch that works through different colours of yarn. For the Double Woven Stitch panels, I’ve created large and small waves that are worked across them. I didn’t add it to my scarf sample, but you could also create some couching along the edges of the stockinette stitch by running a couple of rounds around under the slip stitches in the pillar columns there. This is the stitch that is used in the Neckerchief pattern.

Clodagh Neckerchief

This is a really interesting little shape to wear and surprisingly versatile. Because the yarn is lightweight and the neckerchief is such a small little triangle, it means that you can tie this on and wear it very comfortably on a cool morning or evening. Add it as a nice little addition to a simple T-shirt for a total outfit upgrade!

This starts at one corner, increasing along one edge until you reach the full width and then decreasing at the other side. You’re doing an all-over slip stitch pattern with this neckerchief, initially in Pillar Stitch and then adding a Double Woven Stitch at the bottom of the triangle.

Because you have an all-over slip stitch pattern on this knit, I felt that a different, more dramatic form of embroidery would work well. For the sample, I’ve used a contrasting colour of the same yarn that you use to create the neckerchief. I have thread yarn under Pillar Stitches to create embroidery couching as well as using the column slip stitches to zigzag back and forth, creating a lacing effect. Finally, at the very bottom of the triangle, I’ve created an embroidered diagonal arrow, with a stack of them nesting one on top of each other for the final touch.

One of the beauties of embroidery is that it’s very easy to modify and make it your own. I would encourage you to mix and match your colors and to experiment with different types of stitches until you find one that feels truly you.

Join The Club

If you’d like to join us as we explore embroidery on our hand-knits, then just hit this button and our digital club option will give you access to patterns, step-by-step workshops and live recordings.