Embroidery is always something I’ve admired. The skill itself takes hours to do and years to master, but the results are always stunning. A while back, I decided I wanted to learn at least the basics. I figured it would be difficult, but at the very least I’d pick up a new hobby.
See, I often found myself falling down rabbit holes when it came to potential hobbies. At one point I was certain I wanted to learn how to hand-make lace. I would spend hours watching videos of people working on their projects and was fascinated by them. The same thing happened with embroidery. I already had fallen down a mending rabbit hole: learning how to repair clothing and give it new life. This led to the YouTube algorithm recommending me videos about embroidery. I must have watched hours of content, most of them being time-lapses of people working on their embroidery projects. I could sit and watch their work slowly come to life and never grow tired of it, I found it fascinating. What could take days for someone to do I would watch get done in a matter of minutes, and it all looked so amazing. I wanted to learn; I wanted to create.
So, I did it. I taught myself a few of the basic stitches and learned what I could, and I enjoyed myself. It wasn’t easy, but luckily, I hadn’t expected it to be. I found I preferred learning how to make small designs. I embroidered daisies on the pockets of my jeans and I covered my pencil case with constellations. I never spent more than a few hours on my projects (I’ve never had much patience), but I still found myself deeply satisfied with the work I was doing. For the most part, I stick to small things. I like to incorporate embroidery when I’m mending old clothing items. I’ll patch a hole and then add a few flowers or a constellation. I just enjoy adding a little something to an otherwise bland repair, it’s fun and it makes the item more unique.
I embroider less frequently now; I’m not one for taking up large projects and even small ones can be deeply time-consuming. Plus, I never know what to do with my projects on a piece of clothing when they aren’t done. I have a lot of scraps of fabric from when I was learning that just sit around and collect dust. I’m still figuring out what to do with them since I don’t want to get rid of them. But I do still love embroidery. Every so often, I’ll watch a video of someone doing it and think to myself, “Hey, I know how to do that.” It’s a skill I’m glad I learned.
If you’re ever looking for something to do in your free time, I highly recommend embroidering. I learned because it interested me, and now I have a hobby I love.