Christmas Embroidery Designs - Fa La Llama

Christmas Embroidery Designs – Fa La Llama

I will always love a llama. I have had so much fun this year branching out with my hand embroidery and finding inspiration all around me. For this post I want to share with you a few tips for creating fur and dimension in your embroidery. This is a Fa La La La Llama Christmas Embroidery Designs tutorial.

Christmas Embroidery Designs – Fa La Llama

Christmas Embroidery Patterns:

You can find lots of great embroidery patterns on Etsy (both hand and machine) that are labeled as embroidery patterns. But I urge you to think outside the embroidery box! I love using images from lots of other places to create my embroidery.

This llama design is from my dear friend Alexis at Peria Lou. You can grab the cut file and the png HERE.

To use a png as an embroidery design you just need a few things. I recommend you have a light box. I use THIS one from Cricut. You will also need a pencil. I used this heat transfer pencil and a heat source. I like my Cricut EasyPress2 because you can set the temperature and it is a constant even heat.

QUICK REVIEW: So I like to try out different gadgets and things that I find when I am wandering the aisles at Joann. I found these heat transfer pencils (that I linked above) and I thought wow those are awesome. You can see how they worked in the video, but basically I was underwhelmed. They worked. But it was really hard to see and I don’t think they would show up on any fabric but white or off white (I didn’t try though, full disclosure.) I ended up going over the design again with a regular pencil because I guess I am an old lady and can’t really see anymore! So in the future I will be going back to just a pencil or fine point pen to transfer my designs. They do say that the marks will come off in the wash, which a pen regular pen doesn’t, but I don’t wash my embroidery so this doesn’t really matter to me.

How to Transfer the Design:

If you find a cut file that you love it is usually offered as an SVG, which is just a mumbo jumbo computer term for a type of file. They also typically offer a PNG, another term, which basically means a picture without a background. So print the PNG version of the pattern. You may have to play around with the scaling to get the size that you want for your pattern.

So you can watch the video to see how I transferred the design with the transfer pencils. But if you read above then you know that is not really my ideal method. Instead check out THIS post for transferring, that post also has a video where I use my preferred method for transferring.

You will use a fine point pen or a pencil and trace the design using a light box.

Embroidery Tips:

** My newest favorite gadget is this magnifying lamp. It has a bright light and it magnifies so you can see those tiny little stitches! You can see the clamp magnifying lamp that I got HERE. This one is great because you can clip it anywhere so if you want to sit at the table or on the couch you can clip it on and have a magnifier and light built right in!

** Use the whole strand of embroidery floss to fill the llama fur in faster. But make sure you have several skeins of floss because you will use quite a bit of it.

** Try using a tapestry needle because the opening is larger and it is easier to thread.

** A lap hoop embroidery stand will make it much easier to do embroidery. This gives you two free hands and helps cut down on the fatigue of the hand holding the hoop. I LOVE my lap hoop.

Do you have any tips or questions about these Christmas embroidery designs tips?? Share with me in the comments below.