Craftiosity – The Floral Ribbon Embroidered Bag

I’ve got another project from the wonderful Crraftiosity monthly subscription box, and this time it’s using a technique similar to but not the same as some previous kits – making a Floral Ribbon Embroidered Bag.

I’ve done a couple of kits involving  embroidery before, but never including ribbons! It had never occurred to me that you could use ribbon for embroidery, but looking at the picture on the  leaflet it’s very effective.

Inside the box is everything you need for the project, except for basics like scissors. Here there is a hessian bag, a selection of coloured ribbons, embroidery thread, a water-soluble pen, a template, and of course needles. There are full instructions provided, and you also have access to a video you can follow along. I don’t always use the videos as the written instructions are detailed, but on this occasion I definitely needed to.

The design given is a simple outline of a hand holding flowers, which are made with the ribbons. Sometimes I like to go a little off-piste with designs, and the projects often have plenty of scope for this, but this time I thought I’d do the design pretty much as shown.

The first thing to do was to make the hand shape. There was a template included which just needed cutting out and then drawing round with the pen. The water soluble ink is really useful because you can just wipe it away when you’re done. There were several colours of thread and I went with the pink as I thought it would look nice against the brown colour of the bag and pop a little bit.

This part of the embroidery was quite simple. Thanks to previous Craftiosity kits I actually know how to do a backstitch, which is what was needed. As you can see my shape is slightly wobbly, and my stitches aren’t perfectly even but I don’t think it matters. Also the hessian fabric of the bag made it very easy as the woven texture is a great surface for embroidering.

Once the hand was done, it was time for the flowers. This is the bit I really needed the video for, as you can see exactly what is done to make the flowers. Again the tiny holes in the bag are very good for ribbon, and there was a slightly wider needle for the ribbon as well. Sometimes when it was being stitched to itself, as it were, it required a bit of a wiggle to get the needle though, but it worked fine with patience. The middle of this flower uses a French knot technique, which is exactly as it sounds, you make a decorative knot which gives a lovely 3D effect and is perfect for the centre of the flower.

As well as the red flower, there were also different techniques for making different flowers. One of the trickiest things was making sure not to pull the ribbon too tightly, because you want that slight puffy 3D effect rather than just a flat look. As well as the flowers on the instructions I also added a couple of little flowers using just French knots, which I thought looked pretty cute!

Once the flowers were done green ribbon was added to create the stems both above and above little bit below the hand. These could either be flat ribbon or twisted, which looked very effective. I forgot to photograph those, but here is the finished bag:

Doesn’t it look pretty? I really like the effect of the flowers with the puffy petals, and the different colours look beautiful. There is masses of ribbon and additional thread too so you could do the other side as well, or add some details on the sides. It would make a very fancy gift bag, or just something pretty to store. You could also make a vase outline instead of a hand, or even just flowers! There’s plenty of scope for creativity.