Now that spring has sprung, it’s time to pull out the hose and trowel and get to work on your garden. But if you’re lacking a green thumb like me, you can always use your embroidery skills to make flowers bloom everywhere else. Here are some of the prettiest flower embroidery projects and patterns for both hand and machine embroidery. For more machine embroidery patterns, check out Shawn Knight’s designs. 

lifechilli.com

Silk Ribbon Flower Embroidery

One embroidery technique to make beautiful flowers on almost any fabric is using silk ribbon. The ribbon creates a realistic texture to the petals. This tutorial from Life Chilli demonstrates how to use various stitches with ribbon to create floral patterns.  

urbanthreads.com

“Florophone” Embroidery Design

This pretty machine embroidery design from Urban Threads features a musical twist as the flowers come out of an old-school gramophone. The final pattern is quite large so it may be best used for a large pillow or tote bag.

abeautifulmess.com

Floral Embroidered Shirt

If you want to add a floral touch to a plain shirt, this DIY project from Kelli at A Beautiful Mess is for you. The DIY offers a free pretty rose pattern to use that fits perfectly along a V-neck shirt, but you can use the steps in this DIY to transfer any hand embroidery pattern to a T-shirt.  

craftychica.com

Mixed Media Flower Embroidery

Kathy from Crafty Chica used a variety of tinted embroidery to create this mixed media piece. By only outlining the flowers with thread and using tie-dye, fabric markers and glitter to color the embroidery design in, you get a beautiful and unique flower. Plus you can use this technique with any flower embroidery pattern you choose. 

sublimestitching.com

Floral Fantasy Pattern

Sublime Stitching’s Jenny Hart has created many a gorgeous floral embroidery patterns. This floral fantasy pattern features a cheeky girl with flowers in her hair and a bee by her side. It also comes with two different color guides and if you register with the site, you can get the PDF for free!

designsbyjuju.com

Floral Alphabet Pattern

The Flirty Florals Alphabet from Designs by Juju is a great way to add pretty and fun flowers to any monogram. This machine embroidery design comes in a variety of formats and each letter is only 3.23”x5” so you can use them on a variety of objects.

sewmamasew.com

Alice’s Garden Pattern

Featured on Sew Mama Sew, this floral pattern is inspired by the garden of Alice in Wonderland. It was created by Julie Zaichuk-Ryan of Little Dorrit & Co. which specializes in literary and floral themed embroidery patterns. Alice’s Garden works in many different stitches so it’s a great pattern to practice on.