This Style of Embroidery will Blow Your Mind

While scrolling through reddit a few months ago, I came across embroidery GOLD.

Someone had posted “their version of” the 3D embroidered koi pond. It was this little fish pond scene embroidered on multiple layers of translucent tulle fabric. This makes it so when stacked together and viewed from above, you could see all the way through to the bottom layer. This idea intrigued me. I had never seen anyone stack embroidery hoops — but it’s genius! After some slight sleuthing, I tracked the the source of the original koi pond back to Grace Pool (@gracemichool on IG).

Grace created this beautiful 3D koi pond by fitting 3 embroidery hoops with layers of dark blue tulle. On the bottom, she embroidered small stones and river rocks; in the middle, four koi fish suspended in water; and finally, some lily pads for the top layer. The final product, when stacked together, creates this unexpected depth that just took my breath away.

More of Grace’s stacked hoop projects:

It's been almost exactly a year since I posted my 3D koi pond, and I just finished another 3D piece! This one features a coral reef stitched on cotton for the base layer, a hammerhead shark and a small school of orange fish stitched on a single layer of dark blue tulle for the middle layer, and some crashing waves afloat on a layer of tulle for the top layer. I'm really really proud of this one, especially the coral reef. I'm going to have to remake the reef as a standalone embroidery to have one that isn't covered up. #embroidery #shark

I re-created my little koi pond last week, and even though I was sure it wouldn't be as cool the second time, I was wrong. It's still kind of magical.

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Of course, after seeing this I had to try it myself. The 3D koi pond was super popular and became somewhat of a trend on this subreddit, so I wanted to take the idea of stacking hoops of embroidered tulle and make it my own. I came up with this misty morning forest scene using white tulle to create the foggy effect.

The bottom layer is stitched on four layers of white tulle and features both mountains, the cloud and the start of the waterfall. The middle layer is 3 layers of tulle, stitched with a dark green forest layer, pine trees and the continuation of the river. The top layer is the wildflower hill and lake stitched on 2 layers of tulle.

I didn’t shop for this project — I just used the thread and fabric I had at home — so this was more of an “experimental” project for me. And I’d call this experiment a success! This definitely won’t be the last project I embroider in this style. I’d even like to embroider this same pattern again, adding some different elements. When I was creating this one, I planned on adding more clouds on the second hoop, but ultimately ran out of thread.

So, how’d I do? What other scenes should I “paint” in this style?

If you try this stacked embroidery hoop technique for yourself, I’d love to see what you’ve created! Share with me in the comments or tag @gracemichool and @edenkittiver on instagram!