My grandmother taught me as well. I was about 10 I think. She started me on stem stitching, then french knots, then satin stitch. Check out you tube and just go slow. It takes awhile to make it go smoothly. You could also get a guide to different stitches. You'll master it in no time, but start with something simple.

My sister is queen of embroidery and she carries a small stitch book with her stuff in her purse. You can get one at any good book store or quilt shop that carries much embroidery work. Look through several and see which gives you clear diagrams that make sense to you. Start with hand embroidery. couple things the Embroidery Queen tells all that ask---2 or 3 strands of floss is generally used OR you can use perl cotton instead of 3 strands--perl is a little more manageable but sometimes harder to find the color choices. Perl may be too "big" when 2 (and definitely 1 strand) is called for. The "Queen" also suggests that you use a VERY CHEAP muslin for the backing,and not a fusible as it's harder to needle through. The cheap muslin behind your nicer background fabric will "hide" your thread tails and knots.(because usually you will be embroidering on lighter fabric). If you don't use pre-printed fabric panels (which is a good place to start), you will need to trace your design onto your fabric--light boards are a nice luxury but taping it to a window or even us to a white table top and using a bright light will work fine. she usually traces with mechanical pencil. Once you get into very complex designs, you can purchase a water soluble product that you run through your printer and copy the design onto,then slap onto the top of your background fabric and needle through. Most of your designs can be done with a backstitch and a french knot--so start with them. Good luck--I'm not a huge fan of doing embroidery (like the look, but rather lazy!) so my sister embroiders and I piece and quilt.

The embroidery bug has never bitten me but was amazed when my two of my friends each bought one All I hear now are complaints on how much thread the machines uses and changing the thread isn't very easy.

I am participating in the Splendid Sampler (sew along) hosted by Pat Sloan and Jane Davidson. There have been several blocks that have involved embroidery, there are embroidery and appliqué tutorials available on their website.
http://www.thesplendidsampler.com

I purchased a small hoop, embroidery thread and needles and have been just taking it one step at a time. : )

I have an embroidery machine that I use occasionally. But recently I became intrigued with hand embroidery. I had purchased some embroidered pillow cases and they were so beautiful that I had to try. Jack Dempsey sells some preprinted embroidery squares that can be used in quilts. I purchased a few packages on E Bay and started practicing. WalMart also has some packages of iron on transfers where you can choose your fabric. I have a book called "Reader's Digest Complete Guide to Needlework". It has 78 pages on embroidery. I use that quite a lot. There is also a type of embroidery called "Chicken Scratch" which is done on gingham squares.

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I do enjoy doing that also.
Here are a couple of embroidery sets that I have done.
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Hope you can find a you tube video to help. It is very relaxing.

Hi there, check out Craftsy.com they have free teaching classes that may help you also. I do all my embroidery on my viking.

i actually learned by buying kits as a child. My mom knew all the stitches and helped me but as I recall some of the kits always had instructions on how to do the required stitches. This type of kit is still available at stores like Michaels and come with the pattern stamped on the fabric and all threads and instructions needed. May be a good place to start. You can always cut the fabric after embroidery is done and incorporate into a quilt. Good luck.

Craftsy has some very good hand embroidery classes. I have learned a lot from them.

Hi. I love Mary Corbet from needle and thread. http://www.needlenthread.com/2009/08...ons-index.html. She has all kinds of tuts to learn from . She has vidio's on how to.

I might be wrong but I think crewel embroidery is all done with yarn. At least all the kits I have done in the past were done using crewel yarn. Used a lot of satin stitches.