Step by Step Guide for Designing an Embroidered Cushion

I got a really positive response from my New York embroidered cushion and I am happy to say that I do have a few more planned in this style, based on different locations.

I also received some encouragement to produce a tutorial based on this, so today I am offering a step by step guide to designing your very own embroidered cushion.
You don;t have to be an amazing artist or talented embroiderer to give this project a go - all you need is patience as it is quite time-consuming - but, in my opinion, totally worth it!

 1. Decide where you are going to base your cushion on - this can be somewhere you have visited - a country, a city or a whole trip

2. Next, brainstorm some prominent landmarks that will feature in picture form on your cushion. Remember you are going to embroider these, so try to think of things that can be reproduced simply.

3. Either sketch, or print out and trace, pictures of the landmarks. I used the tracing technique for the Empire State Building, Brooklyn Bridge and Statue of Liberty. This was mainly to get proportions right, and as you can see from the picture, I simplified the pictures substantially

4. Trim an A3 piece of paper into a square shape. Write out the name of the place you are representing on your cushion in block writing. Again, you could trace this from word art if you wanted a particular font.

5. Position your sketches on you square piece of paper. Start to fill in the gaps with words - these can be districts, sports teams, rivers, street names. Think about sizes, fonts and ways to add some information about the place in your design - you can also add little doodles to help illustrate. For example....

The Big Apple

The MET

The Yankees

Central Park

Taxi

NOTE - it doesn't matter if these change when you sew, I realised my NYPD police had was complex and would turn out unrecognisable so replaced it with the letters NYPD instead!

Try to fill you cushion so there are no gaping gaps. It will not look very striking at this point as you have no colour! Once you are happy, outline everything in black fine liner.

6. Trace your design onto calico fabric.

7. Start to embroider - for full instructions on the embroidery techniques I needed for this cushion, stop back tomorrow!

I would love to see your designs or cushions if you decide to give this a go!

Love Rebecca

Linking up to a selection of these great Link Parties