Creating a gift for a special guy in your life can be a tricky process. They always seem to gravitate toward items of the electronic variety and hardly ever truly understand the labor of love behind a handmade gift. However, when a present idea fits the giftee perfectly, giving a slaved-over item is much more satisfying than receiving.

I recently had to come up with a gift idea for a certain boy who spends most of his time studying for his degree in Shakespearean literature. After a couple of conversations of slyly trying to dig what to make for him, I decided to embroider a Shakespearean quote onto something. My original idea was to crossstitch it in a kitchy fashion and frame it; however, after discovering that one of his favorite characters was Othello, the frame idea was nixed.

I read the play, decided on a quote I liked, and with the help of a wonderful friend (I’m looking your way, Michaela), discovered that I could use Shakespeare’s First Folio to find the original old English spelling and grammar and embroider it onto a hanky—the most pivotal prop in the whole play.

To make a long story short, deciding how to embroider on something so fragile and so close to an edge proved to actually be a bit of a challenge.

To see a tutorial on how I ended up making it, check out my post on CraftStylish.