While taking pictures to add to the pattern for my newest design, Twinkle Bunny Lovey, I thought about all of the beginner crocheters in groups I follow that are always asking for help with learning how to embroider even the simple faces. I thought it might be nice to be able to show a few pictures to help them learn to get started with face embroidery. Maybe it can help you too?
Before we get started I should probably advise you to NOT use the same weight yarn you have used for crocheting the head. That yarn will be way too bulky for facial features. I usually use a thinner cotton suitable for making doilies but I will also dip into my embroidery floss stash if I want a different color (or if I want an unusual effect like combining strands of different colors). If your features still seem a bit light you can always go back over it another time to make the threads thicker. It still won’t be nearly as bulky as the yarn you used for crocheting.
Another tip I would give is the same tip my mom gave me for choosing mascara. Black is usually too harsh and looks fake. I hardly ever embroider with black unless I have chosen a very bold color as the main color of my amigurumi. Black is especially too harsh when used on the soft pastels people usually choose for baby toys.
Please forgive the lighting on my pictures. I was racing sunset in the only tiny location I have for shooting pictures at home.
Let’s get started!
First we want to “draw” on the features with pins. There’s no need to freehand your face and end up not liking where you stitches ended up AFTER you did all the hard work. It’s also easy to shift the entire face around just by moving the pins. Sometimes I even wind thread around the posts of the pins to get an even better visualization of what it will look like when finished.
I like to start my first stitch in between where my sewing will begin and end. The reason for that is I can draw my ending thread through the SAME hole to knot it securely and then sew the 2 ends back through that single hole and my face stitches will never work loose.
Here I entered between where the eyes will be and exited at the inner corner of one eye. You could do the outer corner too. It doesn’t matter.
Leave a tail hanging out of a sufficient length to knot and sew back in later.
Next, I entered through the outermost corner of that same eye and kept my thread on the upper side of what will become the eyelid. You can pull the pins up just far enough for your thread to wrap against them to get your curve.
Then I insert the needle in that same hole I just came out of on the other side of the thread so I now have a loop around the eyelid thread to tack it in place. My needle exits through the next place I will be taking the eyelid thread down.
The needle enters the same hole it just exited and exits on the far side of the nose. You can tweak the tension of those eyelid stitches before you move on with the rest of the nose.
Enter on the other side of the nose and exit at the top of the little downward mouth line. Make sure your nose thread goes UNDER your needle so your new working thread will draw it down into a V shape.
Enter through the bottom of the mouth line and exit at one of the corners of the not yet worked eye.
We’re repeating what we did with the first eye. Enter through the other corner and exit above the eyelid thread to start tacking it in place.
Enter in the same hole and exit above the thread in the final tack space.
Enter back in the same hole you just exited from and now exit out the same hole you first entered in at the very beginning. Make sure you haven’t caught any other fibers. You want to be right next to that first thread so we don’t catch any of our crochet when we pull the knot inside.
Knot your 2 threads securely together and feed them back through the hole they are both coming out of.
Exit your thread somewhere sufficiently far away from your knot so you will be leaving a bit of tail on your threads after the knot. I usually go as far as my needle will take me. Pull firmly on the threads to pop the knot below the surface. Tug on the exiting thread tails and trim them. They should sink beneath the surface of the yarn and be hidden.
CONGRATULATIONS! You have just embroidered a standard sleepy bunny face! That’s your first step to making your way toward those fabulously extravagant embroidered faces that make us all swoon.
