The Embroidery Sampler Box

What you would make

A single hooped piece, roughly 20 cm across, that you finish and hang up. The design is a botanical arrangement chosen for one reason: each element needs a different stitch, so by the time it is finished you have used six stitches in a real context rather than in a practice row.

Stems are worked in stem stitch. Outlines in back stitch. Leaves are filled with satin stitch, which is the one that punishes impatience. Small flowers are detached chain. Seed heads are French knots, which everybody dreads and nobody should. A few connecting details are split stitch, which is the stitch you will reach for most often afterwards.

Working them in that order is deliberate. The stitches that are hardest to get even are worked last, once your tension has settled.

What would be in the box

• A 20 cm beech hoop, with the inner ring already bound in cotton tape. Binding is a five-minute job that nobody does and everybody should — it grips the fabric so it stops sagging halfway through an evening.
• Two pieces of cotton fabric, both large enough to mount, one with the design pre-printed in a wash-out marking. The second is plain, for the parts you want to practise first.
• Eight skeins of six-strand cotton floss in the design's palette, plus a neutral for practice. Enough to work the design twice over.
• A packet of embroidery needles in two sizes, because the right needle for two strands is not the right needle for six.
• Small sharp embroidery scissors. The single most disproportionate upgrade in the whole craft. Cutting floss with kitchen scissors leaves a frayed end that will not thread.
• A water-soluble marking pen for adjusting the design or drawing your own.
• A printed guide covering mounting, tension, the six stitches, and how to finish the back of the hoop so it looks intentional.

What you would need that is not included

An iron, a bowl of cold water for rinsing the marking pen out at the end, and reasonable light. Daylight or a decent lamp matters more than people expect — most beginner tension problems are really "I cannot see where the needle came up" problems.

Read the guides now

The written parts of this box are already published and free:

• Six embroidery stitches that cover almost everything
• Fabric, hoops and floss: choosing materials that do not fight you
• Five ways to transfer a pattern onto fabric

Where it leads

Embroidery is unusual in that the beginner kit is very close to the full kit. After this box the only things you would add are more colours, a larger hoop and possibly a stand. The leftover floss and both needles stay useful indefinitely, and the plain fabric square is the start of the next piece.