There are so many ways to practice your embroidery skills while at the same time making something useful and artsy. I'll bet you have a few shirts, pants, and jackets that you were thinking of tossing but think again!

I'll bet if you search in your closet and you can find some clothes that might need a little upgrade.

I pulled this striped shirt as the perfect candidate.

Examine your garment to determine a good spot for embroidering. Shirt pockets, collars, and seams are great places to accent. I chose this front pocket. On pants, back pockets are a cute place for embroidery accents. The top middle of the back of a shirt is also works well for larger designs.

I'm using wool thread for this project.

Choose colors that will complement your piece. I went with a very bright color palette.

I also chose a tapestry needle. This is a needle with a large eye and which had a blunt point at the end to accommodate to thicker wool thread.

I started by threading my needle. My thread could be twisted apart into three smaller strands so I used one strand to start with.

I just dug right in and started stitching. When I finished a strand I changed colors and tried a new stitch. I started with some simple straight stitches on the left in yellow. Next I added some SATIN STITCH in red, yellow, and orange in the middle and some LAZY DAISY stitches in yellow. I just kept finding empty space and filling it with whatever random stitch I thought of until there was no more space to fill. I even added some FRENCH KNOTS on top of SATIN STITCH and I loved the bumpy texture it created.