Embroidery: current tips and tricks for summer embroidery? Sticken without the “r” ;)

Dear users, dear authors,
Do you currently have any tips, tricks, or questions about embroidery?

I did quite a bit of hand embroidery until I got my first embroidery machine about 10 years ago; since then, I’ve only been embroidering with the machine. One of my most labor-intensive projects was a table runner I designed myself—I turned patchwork blocks into embroidery patterns and stitched them by hand.

I only embroider by hand and almost exclusively do cross-stitch patterns. I think it’s great that you can basically pixelate any image (even photos) and then stitch it out. However, it’s all very time-consuming, and even small embroidery projects are little works of art. When I give them as gifts, it’s only to people who truly appreciate the effort that went into them. I also enjoy embroidering greeting cards—that makes them something very personal.
Machine embroidery—to me, it’s to hand embroidery what photography is to painting.

So embroidery is more time-consuming than crocheting, knitting, crafting, etc.?

Oh yes, if you’re looking for something out of the ordinary, sure—I’ve also embroidered using pre-printed patterns, but designing my own was more fun

Embroidery is complex because you can actually embroider on any material that a needle can pierce. That could be silk or leather. Then there are different types of embroidery, such as cross-stitch, Hardanger, artistic embroidery, or needle painting. For each type, I might need different needles or special thread. With Hardanger, for example, you have to count the stitches to get the pattern to look right. My mom used to make wonderful pieces of it; I never learned—it seemed too fiddly to me ;-) :-)
Then there’s Richelieu embroidery, which I also really like, or eyelet embroidery. For me, hand embroidery was mostly a way to unwind from everyday life when stress was getting to me. Today, I do it while digitizing my embroidery designs for the embroidery machine.