This page is an organized compilation of links to help you learn hand embroidery. It will be a work in progress forever, as I find new resources and explore more topics on my own, but I hope it will always be useful! You can jump below the basics to online stitch dictionaries and similar, or resources for free online patterns.
I wrote a “before you begin” post on embroidery that talks about materials and basic instructions, but no stitches. Another pre-stitching basics page may be found at the DMC site.
Wild Olive made a nice Embroidery Basics series, with materials and some stitches. Needlework Tips and Techniques’ basic embroidery tutorial is chatty, and talks about the use of the stitches.
DMC has a needlework glossary that includes a few crochet terms as well as embroidery terms.
For blanket stitch, I don’t think it gets more complete than this tutorial from futuregirl. I determined the best way to make reliable French knots while teaching a while ago, much later wrote down that I should make a video or series of photos about it, and later that very day (while looking for something different) discovered Sublime Stitching beat me to it, with the same method down to the very details. Design Sponge has a great use of fly stitches to make a chain of hearts. For other stitches try Sarah’s Hand Embroidery Tutorials, which includes a picture dictionary to help you learn to identify the stitches, and In a Minute Ago, which is extensive and well organized. I also quite like the approach of Victorian Embroidery and Crafts, which gives a description of the use of the stitch in the index that links to instructions.
How-to videos may be found at Needle ‘N Thread and Shiny Happy World.
To see stitches used more together, visit Let’s Learn Embroidery. There is some obtrusive watermarking on the photos, but it shows great projects in progress – more than just isolated stitches.
I made an embroidery sampler to show the construction of stitches; I tried to “stop in the middle” in the stitches and also show the backside. The posts about the individual panels also give verbal descriptions of stitch construction.
More stitches may be found in the Take a Stitch Tuesday category of the In a Minute Ago author’s blog Pin Tangle. Johanna’s Needlework Stitches has many stitches as well. You can never have too many stitch dictionaries!
There are many free pre-made embroidery patterns online. Feeling Stitchy has a weekly tutorial series, which is a great place to learn. From Sprite Stitch and DMC, respectively, come geeky cross-stitch patterns and more classic cross-stitch patterns. Needle ‘N Thread has many patterns for a variety of styles of embroidery. Vintage (i.e., out of copyright) patterns are at Vintage Transfer Finds and PatternBee. DMC actually has several pages of patterns available, though the only other one I’ll link to here is patterns specifically for perle cotton.
When you are ready to start designing your own pieces or learn more advanced or specialized techniques for embroidery, I have another page to help you out.