I tried Embroidery! - See how I got on

Turning your hand to a new craft can seem a little daunting, I know that when I accepted to review a Hawthorn Handmade Cat Contemporary Embroidery Kit from LoveCrafts and it arrived, even though I chose it as it was for beginners I kept looking at it thinking how am I going to even start this?

I am no stranger to sewing, I do a lot of cross stitching but I was a little worried I would mess it up completely as the stitches are not little crosses. Trying something always has some challenges.

I did pluck up the courage and got started and I am going to tell you all about the kit and how I got on with it.

The embroidery kit had everything you need to finish the project in the box;

Pre-printed cotton fabric
DMC stranded cotton thread in 6 colours
7” wooden embroidery hoop
Embroidery needle
Illustrated stitch guide and instructions
Printed card pattern
Beautiful gift box

You do need a pair of scissors which are not included.

The first thing I would suggest doing if it is your first time is to read the illustrated stitch guide and instructions and keep them near you so you can look at it often. This really helped me as they illustrate as well as explain different stitches you may be using in the project as well as giving hints and tips and how to use the hoop as a display and how to finish a stitch.

Having the pattern printed on the fabric is a great idea for beginners, stick to the lines and you can’t go wrong really.

It took me about 3 hours in total to complete although I stretched this over a few evenings an hour a time. I found most of the stitches quite easy, the French knot the trickiest even though I have done them before with a cross stitch kit I had about ten years ago, but I was quite rusty with them as you can tell by looking at the cat’s neck area.

One thing I would have liked to see in the kit is the name of the actual stitch you are supposed to be using for a specific part. The colour-coded pattern did give a guide to how to spread the colours out but I had to reference the image on the front of the box to sometimes guess which stitch I should be doing because the image was quite small. So maybe a larger more detailed image could have helped with that.