No Floss Allowed: Ribbon Embroidery

Hi guys! Today it's my turn to share a No Floss Allowed project. It may not be as inventive as some of the others you will see this month, but it was definitely something different for me!

Ribbon embroidery. Have you tried it? It did pose a little bit of a problem for me. Ribbon embroidery is usually done with silk ribbon, but I'm a vegan so I wouldn't want to use silk. So the search was on for something that would behave like the silk ribbon. Our own Christine suggested using organza/organdy ribbon and that's what I ended up using. 6 mm ribbon in some funky colours.

I'd never tried ribbon embroidery so I had a quick look online to see what kind of stitches are normally used. Turns out, it's some of the basic embroidery stitches like French knot, daisy stitch and stem stitch. So I didn't have to learn any new stitches.I'm glad I chose this linen fabric because the ribbon is a lot thicker to pull through the fabric than floss.

It may have been possible to pull silk ribbon through a lighter weight fabric but I guess I shall never know. I love the contrast between the ribbon in bright colours and the heavy linen. It really makes the colours pop.

I'm not sure ribbon embroidery will be my thing but I definitely had fun trying it. And I may use it as accents in projects, who knows. I'm really glad I tried it.

Have you tried ribbon embroidery? What did you think of it? And what have you used it for?

What are you stitching? Please share in the &Stitches Flickr group. We'd love to see it!