Ribbon embroidery looks complicated when you see some of the wonderfully feminine and romantic looking work done by others. But, if you learn some basic embroidery stitches like the straight stitch, stem stitch and the French knot you can already begin to embroider with ribbons. The trick between regular embroidery and ribbon embroidery is to leave a bit of extra slack in your thread so they are not pulled too tight. You want the ribbon to look placed rather than pulled.

My favourite ribbon embroider work are whole gardens of flowers, especially those I have seen on old, Victorian crazy quilts.

Ribbon Embroidery Resources

• Debbie Cripps - PDF file with a Ribbon Embroidery Stitch Guide

• Beginners' Silk-Ribbon Embroidery: Five Easy Stitches - Threads

• Ribbon Embroidery | Pinterest

• Pinterest Boards - Ribbon Embroidery

• Flickr: silk ribbon embroidery

Embroidery with Ribbons

I fell in love with ribbon embroidery at least 20 years ago when crazy quilting became popular for awhile. Ribbon embroidery was an extra, an embellishment used on some of the old Victorian crazy quilts.

Ribbon embroidery is mostly about flowers. Now all of it though. It's usually very feminine looking but I've seen some ribbon embroidery used in creative, unusual ways too.

I like hand sewing. Most of the sewing I do is either making Christmas ornaments or mending. I hand sew buttons, hem and mend holes. I don't know how I end up sewing everything by hand. I do have a sewing machine, a very good one which my Mother bought me as a wedding present. It's tucked away in a cabinet. Maybe the idea of taking the time to thread it and set it up keeps me from using it. Meanwhile, you can thread a needle and start sewing by hand right away.

Ribbon embroidery is so romantic and feminine looking. I can't see a machine ever being used for embroidery with ribbons. For one thing, just try running the ribbons through the machine instead of the much thinner thread they are meant to use.