To create my machine embroidery samples I first decided to make my own fabric to stitch onto giving a more natural texture to my work and making them appear softer than ready made fabrics.
I decided to make some handmade felt for my pieces (see felt making blog post for more info) I used white/cream felt fibers for my pieces as I felt it would allow the viewer to appreciate the stitch itself more as it would be clearer than on coloured felt.
After I had created my handmade felt I then photo copied a series of my own observational illustrations some of which were primary sketches and some of secondary imagery found online. I pinned these photocopies to the hand made felt and used a sewing machine to stitch the design.
I used an embroidery foot and black thead to stitch my pieces which were simple to set up on the sewing machine.
Due to the nature of the felt and the stiffness of the fbers I did not need to yes an embroidery hoop unlike cotton and other ready woven fabrics.
After I had stitched my design into the piece of felt I then ripped away the paper photo copy to reveal the stitched illustration beneath. 
I also decided to experiment with different decorative techniques on my stitched illustrations including dry felting and hand stitch.
For my dry felted piece I used a needle felting needle and a sponge board to rest upon. I placed my machine stitched piece (here I used a bumble bee) and used coloured felt fibers to poke into the fabric I had created.
The needle felting needle has a series of hooks which allow the felt fibers to bind to the already made felt.
I layered these felt fibers until the bees body became very padded but I drives to leave the wings to give them a transparent look. 
Once I had placed all the needed felt fibers I then trimmed off any excess bits and used the needle to poke any lost fibers through and neaten the edges.
For my hand stitch piece I used an embroidery needle and black and white embroidery floss to add french knots to the piece to give the impression of the pattern on the back of the beetle in my illustration. I thought this would add a raised texture and would also give a nice impression of the beetles markings.
I also decided to do a realistic stitch piece, inspired by a pencil drawing of of a dead bird I created. To do this I it's photocopied my drawing and traced it using a light box. I placed the fabric in an embroidery hoop and used a series of different coloured threads to give a realistic impression of the bird I was inspired by. I used similar colours to the image I was inspired by and used a limit method of stitching to give an impression of feathers. 
This was a very time consuming method and also caused the fabric to pucker slightly due to the amount of machine stitch on the piece. To stop this from happening I could have tightened the embroidery hoop to remove any slack from the fabric.
Equipment list-
- Needle felting needle
- Sewing machine
- Black thread
- Embroidery floss
- Handmade felt
- Photocopy of design/illustration
- Embroidery needle
- Pins
- Scissors
- Foam/Sponge pad
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