10 Easy Ways To Fix Hand Embroidery Mistakes

Making mistakes is a part of learning any skill, and it can even happen to some of the most experienced stitchers. This post will walk you through how to fix your embroidery mistakes so you can continue on with your work without feeling like you have to trash a project.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission if you choose to purchase an item.

Assess The Damage

Once you’ve identified you’ve made a mistake, stop and take a look at where it is.

• Does the mistake cover a large or small area?
• Is it an area that you just stitched or did the mistake go unnoticed for awhile?
• Does the area appear to be covered up with other stitches?

Depending on the size of the mistake and where it is, there are a variety of different approaches for fixing it.

Removing Small Recent Mistakes

For recent mistakes that cover a small area, you may be able to remove the individual embroidery stitches. Place the eye of the needle underneath the stitches and carefully remove them until you’ve gotten to the mistake.

Large Mistakes

Larger mistakes may take a long time to remove stitch by stitch, so it’s easiest to remove them all at once. I would avoid using embroidery scissors to remove the stitches because it can easily put a hole in your work.

Instead, a seam ripper is a great way to remove the stitches. (If you don’t have one, there are many affordable options on Amazon)

Removing Stitches With A Seam Ripper

Carefully place the seam ripper underneath the stitches you want to remove. Once you’re ready to remove the stitches, gently pull up with the seam ripper to rip the stitches. You may need to flip your work over from front to back a few times, picking out the loose stitches as you go.

Once you’ve removed most of the stitches, undo the last few stitches by placing your needle underneath of them and pulling each stitch out. This way, you’ll have a tail of thread that you can secure on the back of your work so the rest of the stitches won’t come undone.

Older Mistakes That Are Covered Up By Other Stitches

Some older mistakes may be entangled or underneath adjacent stitches and colors which will make them harder to remove. For example, you may have filled in an area with the long and short stitch and then added more stitches in another color on top of those.

In this case, you may have to remove both the stitches on top and the stitches underneath.

This can be a lot of work, so it’s really up to you what you decide to do. If it doesn’t seem worth it to remove it, you can leave it alone or consider these alternative options.

Knots and Tangles

Tangles In The Thread

Knots can sometimes form in the thread. If you’ve ever gotten a knotted loop in your working thread, don’t freak out! They’re usually pretty easy to remove.

• Place your needle in the loop or pinch the loop with your fingers and pull upwards while you’re holding the thread in your other hand. The knot should start to give.
• Then pull the 2 pieces of the thread below the knot and the knot should untangle and disappear.

Knots That Have Formed On The Surface Of Your Work

For knots that have formed directly on top of the fabric, it’s usually easiest to remove them by cutting them out. You can do this by using a seam ripper or by cutting the base of the knot with a sharp pair of embroidery scissors (like these ones on Etsy).

If you use a scissors, just make sure to pull the knot so it’s raised above the fabric and that the scissors are parallel with the surface of the fabric when you cut it.

Once you’ve cut out the knot, place your needle underneath the stitches that are closest to where the knot was and undo a few stitches until you have enough thread to secure it along the back.

Alternatives To Removing The Stitches

Cover Up The Mistake

If you are working on a project that uses less strands of thread (for example, thread painting where you only use 1 or 2 strands at a time) it should be relatively easy to stitch over the mistake and cover it up with more stitches instead of removing anything.

If you’re using more strands or a thicker type of thread, adding more stitches on top may be a little bit harder to stitch through and it might add a bit more bulk to the area. So just be mindful of this before you get started!

Get Creative: Incorporate The Mistake Into The Design

Interesting and unexpected things can happen when you figure out a way to incorporate a mistake into the design!

Not happy with a color you stitched with? Instead of removing it, try tweaking the color palette to better complement the colors you’ve already used.

Stitched a little outside of the lines of the design? Maybe you could add more to the design to balance it out or use an outline stitch to smooth the edge.

For even more ideas, this article is an interesting read.

Collage And Piece Together

If you have an embroidery that is solidly filled in with stitches such as the long and short stitch or satin stitch, you may be able to completely cut it out of the fabric and secure it to a new piece of fabric.

This option is a bit of a tricky one, but I’ve successfully done it before when I accidentally stained the fabric of an embroidery.

Cut as closely around the embroidery as possible without cutting the stitches along the edges. Then secure it to another piece of fabric by adding stitches along the entire edge of the piece. This will reinforce it, preventing any fraying or stitches from coming out.

Removing Stains From The Fabric

We’ve all been there before: maybe you spilled a drink or got some oil stains on the fabric from where you’ve been handling it. A lot of these stains can easily be removed by soaking the embroidery in soapy water or OxiClean.

Check out this post for even more embroidery cleaning tips.

Extra Considerations

To make fixing mistakes easier in the future, it’s good practice to be mindful of the thread along the back of your work. Things like securing each stitch properly and not trailing the thread over large areas will make it much easier to see stitches you need to remove and it will also prevent a lot of mistakes and tangles from happening.

If you’d like to learn more, I would highly recommend reading this post all about keeping the back of your work neat.

Amanda

Amanda is a hand embroidery teacher and artist. With over 15 years of experience in the craft industry and embroidery, she owns and runs Crewel Ghoul, sharing accessible tutorials and patterns to help inspire fellow crafters to get creative. In addition to running this website, she teaches on Skillshare and Youtube.