Choosing a fabric is an important part of the embroidery process, it is the basis of what you will build your embroidery for so it has to be carefully considered.

Whilst you can use velvet, canvas, leather, silk and many more he most popular and easiest type of fabric to use is a medium weight cotton. For Stumpwork, fabrics such as Felt for a sturdy finish and Tulle for a fine finish are perfect.

The qualities you are looking for in order for your embroidery to be as successful as possible are:

- A medium to fine weave that is easy to sew through but the thread will not pull holes in.

- Non-stretch, any stretch will make it hard to keep the fabric from puckering under the stitches.

- A medium weight fabric. This falls under the same sort of category as the weave but refers to the fact that you don’t want it to be very see though as then your stitchwork on the back will be visible. It is possible to embroider onto very thin or mesh fabrics but you then have to consider that the back has to be as neat as the front.

In reality most fabrics can be embroidered on to but if you are starting out cotton will be the easiest to get wonderful results on.

Shop lovely fabrics below!