You can never have enough...

[kiwimade64]

Roma, I use either a heat transfer pencil or trace/draw directly onto the fabric. I bought a cheap light box from Amazon for around $15 a couple of years ago and that lets me trace my design either directly onto the fabric or onto tracing paper (bought that at Spotlight). If you do go the heat transfer way, don't forget when you iron it onto your fabric it will be reversed. I pencil it lightly then flip the paper over and redraw it with the heat transfer pencil. The heat pencil tends to fade quickly in the light so I will stitch a running stitch around the design to give me that extra outline. If using the heat transfer pencil, use a dry iron and iron the fabric first mainly to get rid of wrinkles but it also warms the fabric and the transfer is more effective. A regular pencil works if you want to draw or trace your design directly to the fabric. It's a fuss to do but worth the effort if you take your time. Also, I will draw arrows in the direction I want the stitching to go to help with how I want the stitches to lie. Hope this helps, sing out if you need more info.

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Roma, I can recommend a book 'The Royal School of Needlework Book of Embroidery'. You may be able to find it in the library, I bought my copy from Book Depository (a to-me-from-me Christmas pressie a few years ago). It's a great go-to reference book and I often flick through it to remind myself how to do different styles. You will see all sorts of different ways of doing the same things on line but I still go back to this book, back to basics so to speak.