Embroidery guide

Guía de bordado (ES)

Guide de broderie (FR)

Borduurgids (NL)

Manual para a floresta da esperança (PT)

Broderiguide (SV)

This page will give you all the guidelines to make an individual piece for the Forest of Hope. If you want to make a collective piece, follow the link below.

Creative stitching guides

Read more about this collective stitching project in the link below.

Call to stitch 2025 – building a textile ecosystem to restore hope

In 2021 we stitched more than 180 trees in total; we were over a hundred stitchers in 10 countries. In 2022-4 we took the Forest travelling around Mexico and then Argentina. And all the while we kept on stitching. Now the Forest measures close to 200sqm and there are new woodlands popping up in Brasil, Spain, Holland … and maube somewhere near you. We are inviting you to help the forest grow even more, and also create flora, fauna and fungi, to complete the ecosystem.

We’re also inviting collective contributions: if you belong to an active collective or want to stitch with friends please take a look at our Call to stitch 2025.

What you chose to stitch and how is completely up to you, but we ask you to follow these guidelines carefully so that the great forest can easily come together with the button and button hole system.

We do encourage you to do some research around the species that are most threatened in your region and use this opportunity to learn more about the factors that put them at risk and what you might be able to do to help.

You can choose to follow the step by step photo instructions or watch the videos  (still in Spanish for the minute, we’re working on it, if you know of someone who could help remake these videos in English, we want to hear from them).

Materials

Please use recycled materials, especially the fabrics in your project. We all have old clothes at home that need to be repurposed and kept out of landfill. If you run out of thread that’s trickier to get repurposed, but please please, only used recycled fabrics and buttons! Please do not buy fabric because that would undermine the meaning of this collective installation for nature and the common good.

Read more about the environmental and social implications of the textile industry below.

What’s wrong with the fashion industry – sustainablestyle.org

What is wrong with the fashion industry and how can we fix it? – rebellion.global

Remember to let us know you’re joining us: register here

Step 1 – choosing your background fabric

Look for some LIGHT coloured old fabrics: sheets, shirts, curtains, skirts, whatever you have!

Some old and well loved fabrics are fragile. We don’t want them to break, so if this is the case, double the fabric up (or more, as necessary).

Remember to let us know you are creating your piece here.

Step 2 – cutting your fabric

For a TREE, cut your fabric to measure (at least) 34 cm wide and 64 cm long. It could be more and you can trim and hem to size when you have finished

For an animal, bird, insect, reptile or mushroom, measure (at least) 34 cm x 34 cm.

Take nice pictures of your process so that you have a «before» shot.

You will design a tree to fit within 30 x 60 cm, or for an animal, bird, insect, reptile or mushroom within 30 x 30 cm. Please note that the cutting instructions allow for 2 cm on all sides for hemming.

The tree shape should be twice the length of the non-tree species.

Make sure you’ve registered so we can invite you to virtual meetings and connect you with local or regional coordinators to make sure your creative piece gets to COP30

Step 3 – strengthening the background fabric

Strengthen the fabric at top and bottom, at least a 10 cm strip. This is to make sure that there are no rips during windy outdoor installations. We’ve had only one incident to date, but we prefer to have no more!

Stitch all four hems. Some stitchers prefer to finish these at the end of the embroidery, it’s really up to you.

UPDATED: I now leave this step til the just before adding buttons and button holes. And often I don’t just strengthen top and bottom, I put a whole second piece of fabric (something old and shabby but that still has strength) on the back. This gives the piece much more strength and body so it hangs better. You choose!

Things to read (and listen to) around your stitches

Step 4 – create your tree

Create your tree – or animal/bird/insect/flower/mushroom – as you wish. We recommend that you chose a wild species you can relate to. For example a specific species that is local to where you live – this is a way of representing your locality in the bigger forest metaphor – or a specific individual that has special meaning for you. Whatever you chose is fine and we love to hear the stories behind the choices.

You can use any textile techniques you chose to represent your tree: embroidery, apliqué, textile paint… The following are some points to keep in mind:

• if you use paint or dyed fabrics: make sure it’s permanent. However fast we take down the installation in a sudden rainstorm, the pieces do run the risk of getting wet at some point! This goes for dyes used on threads too! (We know this because the Forest that took to the streets of Glasgow during COP26 got drenched and some of the colours ran.)
• the installation is designed to be viewed both from afar and close to. Try to make sure your design uses high contrast colours so that it reads as a tree from afar but you can also add smaller details which people love to discover when they get closer. Adding small fauna, flora and fungi around your tree shape is great fun.

Remember to take lots of pictures of your piece while you make it. It’s beautiful to track its progress and we can use your pictures to keep the project visible on social media. If you tag us we will replicate in our stories.

While you stitch…

we would like to invite you to listen and watch and even read new things about the mess we’re in and how we’re living in a wonderful moment to step up and be part of a great turning in our societies towards a way of life that supports life. Sounds unreal to you? Take a look at what we have here:

Things to read and listen to around your stitches

Step 5 – buttons (bottom) and button holes (top)

Following the sizing guide, create two button holes on the top of your tree and add two buttons on the bottom.

The location of buttons and button holes has to be measured as accurately as possible so that the embroideries can hang flat and the craftmanship displayed at its best when the installation comes together.

Generally speaking we advise creating button holes and adding buttons after you have finished your piece and hemmed it. That way you can measure exactly where your centre line is – see dotted red line on the diagram. From this centre line, measure 11 cm in each direction. Don’t measure in from the side, because if your fabric is slightly off the 30 cm – everyone’s are! – then your buttons won’t be 22 cm apart. Always measure 11 cm from the centre line!

The button holes go at the top, should be 11 cm either side of the centre line. They will measure 2 cm and start 2 cm from the top edge.

The buttons – 2 cm diameter or less – go at the bottom should be attached 11 cm from the centre line and 3 cm from the bottom edge of your piece.

If you can’t find 2 cm buttons please err on the smaller size, otherwise the buttons on your artwork will be too large to attach another artwork to it.

Once you’ve finished

Sign your artwork –embroidered on the front or in permanent marker on a scrap of fabric on the back so we know whose it is. Send us your testimony of what it means to you to stitch for the Earth– and send us your beautiful art work so we can install it with the rest of the forest!

See more about what to do when your art is finished

There are now several groups stitching in different countries. Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Brasil, Mexico, UK, Sweden and hopefully more very soon! If you would like to join in, please let us know so we can put you in touch with the nearest person to you who could receive your embroidery.

You can contact us on

email: zurciendoelplaneta@gmail.com
DM on instagram: @zurciendoelplaneta