Course Overview

Learn how to turn your sewing machine into a drawing tool.

This course walks you step-by-step from controlled stitching into expressive, free-motion work—building confidence as you go. You’ll learn how to move beyond straight lines and start creating fluid, energetic marks with stitch.

We focus on both technical setup and creative freedom, so you understand not just how it works, but how to make it your own.

What You’ll Learn

How to set up your sewing machine for free-motion stitching
How to move from rigid lines to loose, expressive mark-making
Which materials, threads, and fabrics give the best results
How to build images using layered fabric and stitch
How to approach portraits without overthinking or freezing

Course Structure

1. Setting Up for Freedom

You’ll learn how to adapt your sewing machine for free-motion work—adjusting tension, foot, and movement so the machine responds to you, not the other way around.

2. Raw Edge Appliqué: Building with Fabric

We begin with a structured exercise: stitching a layered flower using raw edge appliqué.
This introduces you to:

layering colour and texture
controlling stitch direction
building depth through fabric

3. Drawing Faces with Stitch

Next, we loosen up.

Through a series of relaxed exercises, you’ll start drawing faces directly with stitch—quick, imperfect, and expressive.
The aim here is to remove hesitation and build fluency.

4. Free-Motion Portrait

You’ll bring everything together into a fully freehand stitched portrait.

This is where your individual style starts to emerge—no templates, no rules, just response and instinct.

5. Support for Confidence

If jumping straight into freehand feels intimidating, I include practical methods to guide you:

Stitching over printed imagery
Using water-soluble stabiliser with pre-drawn designs
Working from simple reference structures

These allow you to build confidence without losing the expressive quality of the work.

Materials & Approach

You’ll be working with:

layered fabrics, canvas and fabric scraps
a mix of threads (including decorative options)
soluble papers and using printed paper guide techniques

An optional kit is available with everything prepared for you, so you can begin immediately without sourcing materials.

This course is not about perfection or neat sewing.

It’s about:

movement
expression
storytelling through stitch

Optional Materials & Kit

A collection of tools to kick-start your Free-Motion Embroidery Journey

A box filled with everything you need to complete Stitched Portraits and Story Telling Workshop.

Inside you will find...

1x black coats moon thread
1x pack of 5 Schmetz size 90 needles
1x universal embroidery foot, for your machine (not Bernina)
1x gold sparkle thread Guttermann
3x sheets of A4 water soluble paper
1x sheet of A4 paper pre printed with a Frida Kahlo-esk portrait
5x pieces of canvas cut for each exercise of the workshop
2x felt tip pen
6x a3 paper
A bundle of colourful scrap fabrics from my personal collection

You will also need a pair of sharp embroidery scissors, my favourite are the Milward Unicorn Scissors. They have a 10cm blade.
Having Scissors in the box makes it difficult to post to some countries, which is why its not in the kit.