How I Embroidered a Blanket for Florence and the Machine

This year I took on the biggest commission I've ever stitched. A project that took me close to three months and more than 200 hours of hand embroidering. What was it? A custom 50x70 inch embroidered blanket for Florence and the Machine!

How It Started

At the end of January the Climate Pledge Arena reached out to me about working with them on an artist gift for the band Florence and the Machine who was performing on May 12th. I was thrilled to hear from them, since they had commissioned me to embroider three pillows for the band a few years prior. This time around they wanted a blanket. A 50x70 inch embroidered blanket. No small undertaking for a hand embroidery project! They asked me to review the bands newest album, Everybody Scream, and come up with a design that would capture some its essence.

The Blanket Design Process

When I started figuring out the design for this blanket, it was a bit like making a collage. Besides having the band name, album name, Climate Pledge Arena name and performance date, I had free rein on the design. Over the course of a few weeks, I worked with the Climate Pledge Arena to come up with a design that was within their budget, something I could complete by the end of April, and captured Florence and the Machine's newest album.

First I dug into what the album was about. In 2023, Florence underwent life-changing surgery due to a medical emergency. This was the catalyst for Everybody Scream. The album explores trauma, healing, and discovering the body's limits.

Then I looked over as much of the album artwork as I could find. A photo that stood out to me was one of Florence lying on the floor surrounded by a blanket of what appears to be omens, signs of bad luck, and despair. I used this as a starting point.

From there I looked into how I could capture recovery and overcoming something life changing. Since symbolism was already being used in this photo, I also took that route.

Similar to the blanket pictured, I added a boarder design to the blanket. I pulled some of the linework designs shown in the photo as well as symbolism highlighting womanhood, power, perseverance. Since red was such a prominent color in the album, the band name and album name were added in red in the top and bottom corners using the album font.

Then came the challenge of figuring out how to include the Climate Pledge Arena name performance date in a way that felt cohesive to the overall design. For this I also pulled from the same photo. I added a large tree branch with a perched raven. Along the largest portion of the tree branch Climate Pledge Arena May 12, 2026 was added.

Stitching the Embroidered Blanket

Once the design was approved, it was time to get started creating. First I ordered supplies: thread, beads, lace, and a linen blanket base. Then I had to figure out how to scale my design from a 5x7 inch mock up to a 50x70 inch blanket pattern. After figuring out how to tile my design, I printed it on to a bunch of sticky water soluble stabilizer pages. I then laid the blanket flat on my floor and started laying the patterns on top. While there was some resizing and adjusting, I was pleasantly surprised that breaking the image into tiles worked. With the design set, I peeled off the pattern backings and added them to the blanket.

When I went to pick up the blanket, I realized my next challenge was going to be how to hold the blanket, use an embroidery hoop, and stitch the designs further in to the blanket center. I figured I'd start on one side and work my way around. So I rolled the blanket into a big tube. After trying out a few of my embroidery hoops, I also realized, this was going to be one of those projects where I didn't use one. Crazy I know!

Then I stitched, and stitched, and stitched, and stitched.

By the beginning of April I had finished the band name, album name, and the boarders that had stitching and beadwork. But I still had the tree and raven to complete. I was nervous I might not finish in time. But I continued to stitch, and after many many hours and audiobooks, all of the stitching was done.

Then came the next scary part, rinsing away the water soluble patterns. While I use this product all the time and stitched with only DMC thread, I was still scared that something was going to go wrong, like the colors would bleed. Thankfully, they didn't. With many many sink fulls of hot water, soaking, and a bit of light scrubbing, the patterns dissolved. Because the blanket was so big and wet, I had to hang it in my shower to dry. It took almost two days to completely air dry.

Once dried, I looked the blanket over. While I had worked extremely hard to keep the back of the blanket neat, I still felt that if this blanket were to be used, it should be covered up. With that decision, I attached a second blanket (I had bought a back up) on the back. To keep the two pieces together in the middle, I added small pearl colored, randomly placed beads throughout the front of the blanket, similar to a quilt with ties at the block corners.

Finally, I found a lovely sage green velvet ribbon to wrap the blanket up like a present and delivered it to the Climate Pledge Arena with a few days to spare before the end of the month.