How to make embroidery hoop art with dried flowers

How to make embroidery hoop art with dried flowers – Olga Prinku

I can’t quite remember what first brought me to Olga on Instagram, but what I do remember is stopping in my tracks and having to find out more. What I’d seen was a photograph of the prettiest tulle-filled embroidery hoop hand decorated with dried flowers. I discovered all sorts of other beautiful creations by Olga as well as a collection of hugely helpful tutorials for anyone wanting to have a go at creating botanical embroidery hoop art.

Before I knew it I’d made contact with Olga to ask if she might like to share an idea or two with us here. With Spring, Easter and Mother’s Day all approaching, I’m thinking that making your own embroidery hoop art with dried flowers would make great gift ideas – whilst giving you simple, creative joy along the way.

Here’s Olga’s step by step to creating a mini Spring themed hoop inside a presentation box. Scroll down to see lots of other inspiring dried flower embroidery design ideas by Olga – all made using the same technique. Once you’ve mastered it with the help of this free tutorial, you’ll be able to try your hand at any design that takes your fancy. Hope you enjoy.

materials:

4” embroidery hoop

A pice of tulle fabric big enough to cover the hoop (tulle with big eyelets). You can buy English tulle by the yard here

Dry flowers and foliage: I’m using dry small poppy heads, dry grasses, dry eucalyptus leaves and seeds, dry yellow helichrysum Immortelle, dry hydrangea.

You can find all of these dry flowers and more on etsy

Little scissors

• Please note that this tutorial is for personal / non commercial use only

step by step

1.Stretch the tulle over the embroidery hoop, tighten and trim the excess.

 

2. Pick 3 single hydrangea blooms making sure there’s a bit of stalk left. Weave the stalk through the net so the flower is secure in place. Attach all three hydrangea flowers at the bottom of the hoop as closely as possible to each other.

3. On the right hand side of the hydrangea place a couple of eucalyptus leaves weaving the stalk of the leaves in the same way as with hydrangeas.

Display! Best way to display is in a shadow box frame behind glass to protect the flowers from dust and sunshine.

Sourcing Supplies

You can find all of these dry flowers on etsy as well as masses of others. See the individual links in the materials list above for individual flower suggestions.

Find bamboo embroidery hoops on Etsy too

English hexagonal tulle is perfect for this project and is available to buy on etsy here in pure white, soft white and ivory

Dried Flower Embroidery Book by Olga

This beautiful book by Olga has masses more ideas, tips and ideas for you to try. It’s available to buy in hardback from Waterstones and in paperback or for Kindle from Amazon.

Shopping list for dried flowers…

Pink rhodanthe dried flowers

White rhodanthe dried flowers

Dried lilac ixodia flowers

Dried white ixodia flowers

Dried yellow immortelle helichrysum flower

Make your own dried flowers

The wonderful Everlastings book by Bex Partridge of Botanical Tales has all you need to know about drying your own flowers. There are masses of inspiring creative projects to enjoy too. You can buy a copy here>>

Other creations by Olga to give you some ideas and inspiration.

If you’d like to delve deeper and see more of Olga at work, there’s Dried Flower Embroidery Tutorial here (It’s £19.99 and includes tips on how to dry and preserve found flowers, how to work  with embroidery hoops, selecting flowers, techniques and design tips. colour and pattern tips, preserving your artwork and also includes a PDF guide. There’s trailer you can watch here if you’re not sure whether or not to sign up.

Other ideas you might enjoy

You’ll find designs like this one one by Laura and Wildflower Co on Etsy – taking the embroidery hoop again, but this time using natural string to secure the dried flowers in place. 

Scottish Flower Shop sells a pretty range of ready-made pressed flower embroidery hoops too like the one below.

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