Geometric Embroidery Turkey Art Tutorial

One of the (many) reasons why I love embroidery is because every stitching project begins with just a few simple things: needle, thread and fabric.  And yet, from those meager supplies an endless number of projects can be made.  And I love that–creating something totally new from the simplest supplies.

That is how I feel about this little embroidery turkey art project.  Like many of you, I am in a fall frame of mind and I am busy decorating my home for the season.  Thanksgiving is an important holiday around my home and I really wanted a beautiful turkey to hang up.  After much thinking and dreaming I came up with this–a classic silhouette with a cool modern spin.

Like all embroidery projects, this turkey art does take a little bit of time to complete–but embrace that!  Embroidery is something you should do while relaxing.  Put your feet up and savor stitching time.

And, thankfully, while it might take a little bit of time, this turkey art project takes very few supplies!

Supplies needed to make your own geometric embroidery turkey art:

• 7″ Embroidery Hoop.
• White Heavy Canvas Material.
• Water Soluble Marker.
• Ruler.
• Needle.
• Sew Easy Fancy Floss.

Okay, confession time.  Yes, I was inspired by Thanksgiving, and modern art…but I was also inspired by this incredible FANCY FLOSS.  Just look at it–it’s glittery floss!  As soon as I saw it I just had to stitch with it.

Okay back to the project!

First, draw your turkey outline onto your white canvas material using a water soluble marker.  TIP–if you aren’t a natural drawer, which I’m not, trace a turkey.  Pull up an image on your computer, get it to the size you’d like and then tape you fabric directly to the screen of your computer.  The screen will work as a “light box” of sorts allowing you to easily trace it.

Once you have the outline, take a ruler and draw triangles until the entire outline is filled.  You will, of course, not be able to have perfect triangles along the outside of the outline.  Make sure that you don’t make the triangles too small–remember, you are going to have to stitch this!

And, start stitching.  The stitch used in this turkey art project is called a satin stitch.  Basically satin stitch is a long stitch that stretches from one side of an area to the other, over and over again until an entire area is filled.  See below.

The trick is to not only stitch each neighboring section with a different color, but to try and make sure the stitches are running in different directions.

For this project I used 6 threads at a time when doing the satin stitch.

Here is a close up of the head so that you can see what this stitch looks like–and just how glittery this thread is.

As a final step, take the turkey art fabric out of the hoop and submerge the entire thing in water.  This will erase the marker.  Remove the fabric from the water and lay flat to dry.  When it is completely dry, place the fabric back into the embroidery hoop and finish the edges as desired.

And there you have it.  Thanksgiving + Geometry + Embroidery + Glitter = awesome…at least it does in my world!

Thanks for being here, and I hope all of your fall fun is in full swing!

Nancy

Nancy is the play-at-home mom of 3 little ones, ages 3 and under. When she gets a chance she blogs at dosmallthingswithlove.com about the intersection of motherhood and creativity. She has a special passion for embroidery, something she has been doing and experimenting with since she was a girl. A farm girl at heart, she now lives in Minneapolis and enjoys gardening, reading, stitching, traveling and painting. Most any day you can find her with a baby on her hip, barefoot, chasing her kids around the yard and eating beans fresh out of the garden.