Liz

Poster for Oh My Sunshine Night!

Introduction:

Embroidery is a craft that uses thread to decorate fabric (and other materials). It’s a great way to spruce up a garment, customise objects, and to hide mends you’ve made!

Embroidery is usually done with embroidery floss, but depending on the base material you’re working on, you could also use yarn, ribbons, or plain old sewing thread. Don’t be afraid to experiment!

Embroidery is easier to do on taut fabric than limp fabric. That’s why most people use embroidery hoops. While not strictly necessary, a hoop will make your life so much easier.

Using the right needle will help, too. Use a crewel needle if you’re working with embroidery floss, a chenille needle if you’re working with ribbon or yarn, or a tapestry needle if you’re doing cross-stitch embroidery on open-weave fabrics.

While there are many types of embroidery from all over the world, this post will focus on some basic stitches you can use in your own work.

Basic embroidery stitches:

For a more thorough overview of embroidery stitches, check out these embroidery tutorials by Mary Corbet’s Needle ‘n Thread.

The following images show some of the most basic stitches:

(Image source)

The 16 stitches in the images above can be combined into any shape or form you want. You might recognise some from my hand sewing post: embroidery is a type of hand sewing, after all.

You don’t need to know all of these to be able to make beautiful things. Even just one of these is a great start for a project.

This sampler by Sew Nancy shows how these basic stitches can be used to outline shapes or form flowers, for example.

(Image source)

Fiorelila used a combination of the stem stitch, satin stitch, lazy daisy, and french knots to spruce up this sweater:

(Image source)

And this person used lazy daisies to add some flair to their jeans:

(Image source)

Embroidery for visible mending:

Embroidery is a useful tool to hide mends you’ve made, or to even accentuate them if that’s your style. This is called visible mending. While this is a topic that deserves a post on its own, here are some quick examples:

Like this fix by Redditor Takemythyme who embroidered a rose over a hole in a knit fabric:

(Image source)

Or like how this person has spruced up their jeans repairs with embroidery:

(Image source)

In this example, The Woolery Guy chose to use flower embroidery to make a hole in a knit fabric look like it was there by design:

(Image source)

For more examples, check out Pinterest or VisibleMending.com.

Conclusion:

Embroidery is a useful skill to give new life to your wardrobe. You can use it to give some flair to items you’ve grown bored off, or even to mend your clothes.

Once you’ve got a few basic stitches under your belt, the possibilities are endless. Be creative and have fun with it!

500 times better than Starbucks pumpkin spice, plus it has nutrients, plus you don't have to wait for Starbucks to release anything, plus it's vegan,* plus you don't have to go to a coffee shop in a pandemic

oh, anon. uwma is my weakness. ask & you shall receive.

if in & korn lived, they would've been THAT domestic couple.

(for the sake of my own sanity, we're going to skip their fathers being awful & say that they both managed to get out of that awful situation.)

they get their own place, probably somewhere more secluded but still close enough to the family members they actually care about.

i've always said that korn would've been a writer, and i stand by that. he's that stoic anime protagonist that actually writes the most romantic love stories.

they're inspired by in, because duh.

in is his biggest cheerleader; he thinks everything korn writes is amazing, and when he's stressed, he knows just what to do to cheer him up (see: shoulder massages, takeout, and kisses).

in goes into town to help his sister with his niece a lot. in LOVES babysitting duty. especially when alin starts having kids.

he has three new adorable babies to spoil!

and then korn has his two nephews of course.

he so brags about krit using the name he picked out for his son.

you know the way that korn gets soft for in? it's how he gets with baby pharm & phoom.

speaking of kids, i don't know if they'd have kids of their own. it probably would've made things more difficult for them. luckily they can take advantage of all the ones in their respective families!

in this au, dean & pharm still don't meet until college.

with all the bad blood that happened when in & korn were getting together, i just don't think the families would mesh well, so they don't ever meet up.

UNTIL dean & pharm get together.

they're the same adorable couple they are in the series, but this time, they have a gay couple to look up to.

and oh, how surprised inkorn would be to see those two babies together. in would love it, of course, because they make such a perfect pair.

korn would be happy for them, but there would still be concern there from what happened to him and in. he understands it's a much different time, but he can't help but be protective. he pulls them aside early on into their relationship & promises them that if they ever need to talk, he's there for them.

and they take up that offer, though for much happier reasons. they love to go over to their house for dinner. pharm helps in cook, so the food doesn't turn out burnt, and dean & korn watch them with the biggest heart eyes as the whipped men that they are.

Because it's a genuine love story. 

Whether or not you think they're in love (they are) it's about two people who find themselves in each other’s lives, two people who, at first, thought they had absolutely nothing in common  

only to forge such an extraordinary connection with each other that they can’t fathom the other not being by their side 

like this is a significant scene 

not just because Arthur goes back for Merlin, not just because he admits he couldn’t bear to lose Merlin in a brief moment of vulnerability before going back to good-naturedly berating him, but because he says that Merlin is his only friend. This doesn’t mean that he doesn’t get along with his knights or doesn’t admire his knights or doesn’t have affection for his knights but there is still an inherent distance between him and them because of who he is and the role and the title he has that he just doesn’t feel with Merlin and Merlin is of an even lower station than the knights but that doesn’t matter 

like it’s a story about sheer mutual devotion 

and I think that speaks to people, I mean it did for me and I didn’t expect to be as invested in them as I became but I like a great love story and I like that there are details that make up their love story, it’s not generic, they have their Merthurisms

that is evident to other people 

as is their devotion 

Merlin knows that Arthur likes his sass and what’s more, he keeps it up because Arthur likes it

Arthur knows something is going on with Merlin if he isn’t talkative or sarcastic

Arthur counts the days he doesn’t see Merlin smile

Merlin waits in the rain to give Arthur wordless support

Arthur will berate Merlin

Merlin will never give Arthur the satisfaction of letting him know he’s impressed even though he is 

because this is what they do.

And to have these moments and these scenes with the kind of chemistry Colin and Bradley have

which really brings to life this story?