embroid-away:

Hello! Wow, thank you so much! I am excited that you’re interested in embroidery too… so I have good news and mediocre news for you: the mediocre - yeah, most of what I’ve learned has been through trial and error and practice; the good - I’m happy to share what I’ve learned!

I do not have any patterns to offer like cross stitching does. I use the original images and transfer directly onto the aida cloth (fabric). For comic panels, I start off by using my computer to trace the basic shape of the image with a pencil, then freehand the remainder of the details. Sunsets and pets are a little different. I don’t trace sunsets, I just sketch the general shapes and cloud/landscape markers and then fill in. For pets, I trace a little in order to get the face shape, but then I freehand details and fill in with color.

My embroidery doesn’t use a lot of regular stitching methods. I mean, it does, but I’m not using much more than the satin stitch and the back stitch. I know how to do a petal loop (and I use it for my little initials) as well as the other stitches, but I’m not using them much. This website is a good reference for the basics. 

I also use different amounts of thread to get different line thicknesses because embroidery floss is actually six threads together:

I rarely use the full 6-thread strand anymore. I usually use 4-thread for filling in large spaces, 3-thread for outer-outline and filling in smaller spaces, 2-thread for most outlining and letters, and 1-thread for all the little tiny stuff that requires terrifying precision and detail. 

I used to try and fill in everything with color, attempting to recreate the full-color comic panel, and in doing so, I lost a lot of the detail I wanted to capture. That Bucky was actually the first time I was like, ‘huh, if i just embroider the inking, I won’t lose any of the detail.’ If I want just some solid color, I use watercolor paint to stain the cloth, like for this Lying Cat, She-Hulk, and Motivational Orb. That is a useful technique (but be careful, the water bleeds through the cloth and you can stain outside of the lines if you’re not patient).

I hope this helps you get started. I’d recommend just picking a comics panel, making sure that a part of your soul is willing to start over, and trying it out. (There was one time I couldn’t get Steve Rogers’s face right and it DROVE ME BONKERS so i literally scrapped it and started the whole thing over.)