Easy Hand embroidery designs for the lazy embroiderer

This post provides you some very simple hand embroidery motifs that can be used on your clothes, home decor etc.

These embroidered motifs are for the lazy embroiderer who wants a beautiful embroidered fabric but without much effort or time spend -like me. I scoured the net for some small motifs and that was the most difficult part. All I could find was big beautiful intricately worked motifs. They are breathtakingly beautiful but would take a lot of time to emulate, even if it is possible for me to.

Anyways not everyone is that ‘super-embroiderer’ who can whip up complicated designs in an hour in the most perfect way. I am definitely not. Even if you fall into the ‘super’ category you may at times need small motifs that you would like to embroider on your clothes .

Small motifs when worked all over the fabric can simply transform the look of the fabric and I intend to use them on some of my plain cloth dresses which could do with some embellishment.

You can checkout the 10 different inspirations to find your designs for embroidery too if you want more intricate ones. Also Checkout the post on learning to embroider (10 FAQ answered) for the beginning embroiderer. If you are looking for easy embroidery designs for baby dresses checkout this post

Easy Hand embroidery designs

1.Four petal flower motif

This is a phulkari embroidery motif . Usually in phulkari the background is also worked . You can make this motif scattered all over your fabric or stacked together adjacent to each other in a pretty border design

To make this design just make a square and make lines like in the first picture. You have the design. The coloured portion shows where you embroider. You can change this to adjacent petals

2. Simple flower motif

 You can use any flower design. I have made a 5 petal flower here and worked long and short stitches starting from the edges and worked to the inside. A back stitch is used to outline the designs

3. Pinwheel flower motif

This flower is worked with Sashiko stitches . Sashiko designs are the easiest designs to work with but mostly you find continous  motifs worked on the whole cloth.This is an easy stand alone pin wheel flower you can easily draw and work with the running stitches which form the backbone of sashiko embroidery

Draw a circle. Two lines of equal length are drawn inside intersecting each other. Two petals are drawn inside each quarters in a  curved shape. Rub off all the unwanted lines and you have the design

4. Flying goose motif

This is a very simple motif which you can make by drawing a rectangle and the rubbing off the top and bottom portions as in the picture below

5. Diamond design

Another easy to make motif which is made by drawing two lines intersecting each other. Make curved connection lines to the corners. The lines are worked in chain stitch and double lazy daist stitch is worked on the corners. 

6. Eyelet flowers 

This one consists of a tiny eyelet coupled with 4 or 5 bullion knots made along the eyelt holes as petals. Checkout the tutorial to make eyelets for more details. These make great motifs to work on fabric used to make kids dresses

7. Curly motif

An S drawn with curves worked in chain stitches. Granitos stitches are made on the sides 

8. Shadow work/ chikankari  motif

This is a very small chikankari flower motif. Usually chikankari is done all over the fabric . But if you are lazy like me you can settle for small motifs like these. 

Chikankari / shadow work is worked on the back of the fabric ie design is worked on the back of the fabric (herringbone or zig zag stitchs are made on the back and running stitches or back stitches will appear as outline). When done on sheer fabric they look wonderful as the shadow of the stitches become visible on the face

9. Lotus flower motif 

A simple back stiched motif worked on a five petal flower shape .

10. Pistil flower 

Pistil flowers are simply french knots done at the end of a straight stitch. They are very easy to make and gives you a flower in a very short time. Three circles are made inside each other and the pistil stitches are made around the small center. Small french knots fill the inner circle.

You can check out this post on small cute embroidery designs.

Then there are the posts with easy flower embroidery designs – 10 easy to do floral embroidery designs and the embroidered roses & other embroidery stitches flowers or paisley/mango motifs   and the chain stitch embroidery motifs you can use for your embroidery. 

If you would like to find designs for embroidering checkout the post on finding and making designs for embroidery – 10 inspirations 

Related posts : How to hand embroider letters