Recognizing Art Every Day

Details Matter In The Type Of Embroidery Design You Choose

5 June 2023

Chester Carlson

Finding embroidery patterns for a project is simple in that the basic process involves looking at patterns, finding one you like, and starting stitching. But when you actually start looking at those patterns, you start to see more details, and you realize how much those details affect your choices. That makes the process of choosing a pattern more complicated, but don't let that put you off searching. You can handle all those details if you're methodical when looking at a selection of designs. If you're looking for patterns of white tigers or other large cats, for example, the options you find are far greater and more varied than you might have anticipated, but addressing categories of options lets you narrow down those options relatively quickly.

Just the Tiger Figure or a Tiger Plus a Background?

First, when you decided to embroider a white tiger on something, were you thinking of just the tiger without a background, or did you envision, say, a forest behind the figure? Were you looking for a tiger in action, rearing up to attack a foe, or one reclining and looking regal? Knowing your answer to just this one question can help you zero in quickly on a design to choose by eliminating a lot of patterns.

Black and White or Color?

One of the beautiful things about embroidery is that you have control over the colors of thread that you use. If you set out to embroider a white tiger with presumably black stripes, that doesn't sound like you'd have to worry about choosing colored thread. But tigers have pink and black noses, and if you choose a design with a background, you'll need colored thread for that. If you were planning to embroider only in black and white, you'd want to stick to simpler designs. You can get away with having a black-and-white tiger with a black nose, but if you tried to make a detailed background landscape behind the tiger into all black and white, the final embroidery wouldn't be very clear.

Machine or Manual?

Finally—and hopefully this is clearly marked in the catalog you're looking at—you have to choose between machine-embroidery designs or designs you embroider by hand. One concern is that the type of pattern you buy has to be appropriate to the method you're going to use, and that could limit your choices. For example, you may find that the really detailed white tigers with elaborate backgrounds call for manual embroidery, while simple tiger-head patterns are available for machine embroidery. Another issue is that machine embroidery tends to be more repetitive and not as varied in the stitches used to create the final embroidery. If you want to use many different stitches and may decide which ones to use right when you're about to embroider a particular section, hand embroidering will give you that flexibility.

Contact a professional to learn more about patterns like white tiger embroidery designs. 

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