Ashley's linen napkins embroidered with silk ribbon are gorgeous! Hemstitched linen napkins served as the ground fabric for her first forray into embroidery. This sumptuous spray of flowers is so beautifully executed that it's hard to believe the project comes from a beginner in silk ribbon, let alone a beginner in embroidery in general!

I'll let Ashley tell you all about her first experience with silk ribbon embroidery...



I have never embroidered before and picked up Country Bumpkin's A-Z of Ribbon Embroidery while in a needlepoint store and found it simply irresistible! Knowing nothing about embroidery and especially ribbon embroidery, I typed the supply list into a search engine, ordered the products, and waited on bated breath to begin my new project!

The design is called "Desprez a Fleur" by Lynda Maker. The roses are a gathered ribbon rose with two ribbons (a 7mm yellow ribbon and a 4mm pale yellow) stitched together to give it some depth. In the center of the roses are little French knots out of gold Madeira silk floss. The rosebuds were made by covering a pearl bead with ribbon stitches. The design called from glass beads; however, I decided that was a bit impractical for a napkin, but then so is silk ribbon embroidery! These are definitely going to be "looky lu" napkins only!



Of course, after purchasing all of the supplies, I went on to read about the horrors of silk ribbon embroidery...the fraying, tearing, etc. I was beginning to think I was getting in over my head. Luckily, I didn't have any problems and it all went very smoothly and quickly. After doing needlepoint for the last 6 years, I love the
freedom, creative expression, and delicate femininity involved in embroidery. Needlepoint canvas can be rather limiting, even with all of the stitches that are available today. As my Mom says, needlepoint is earthenware, while embroidery is delicate fine china.

I think my next undertaking will be goldwork on a Bible cover. I have been needlepointing a Bible cover and I am just about finished, so I thought maybe I would try an embroidered cover after seeing one of your posts on them. I begin an internship as a hospital chaplain in the fall, so I figure there's no such thing as too many Bible covers!

I know I am probably being a little over ambitious to move straight to goldwork! But I have a touch of youthful hubris-- if others can do it, why can't I too?!

Thanks, Ashley! Um... I think if you launched this easily into silk ribbon embroidery, you should have no problems at all trying your hand at goldwork! Best of luck!

Labels: readers embroidery, ribbon embroidery

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Posted By: Mary Corbet on Thursday, July 02, 2009
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Have you tried Treenway Silks? They make a glorious-looking silk thread, hand-dyed, with matching silk ribbon. I haven't tried them yet, but I'm going to! And soon. Here's a little run-down, some links, some photos...

Treenway Silks is a kind of "cottage industry" (as they describe it) located in British Columbia, Canada. They dye silk and produce all different types of silk products for the fiber artist, from silk yarn to silk ribbon to silk embroidery thread. You can read about their products on the Treenway Silks website, which is quite an informative site to peruse!



I came across Treenway Silks through Nordic Needle, actually, and when I saw the colors of their "fine silk cord," I just had to order one skein. Just to try! But then, as those nefarious shopping carts often do, sure enough, they showed a matching photo of the hand-dyed silk ribbon that coordinated with the thread I had just added to my cart!



*Sigh* I am so weak. But it is really beautiful stuff! I can't wait to stitch with it and see how I like it. I'll definitely let you know how it goes.

Besides these ribbons and threads for hand embroidery, Treenway has several other kinds of fibers for needlework. You can read all about them (and even purchase them) on their Embroidery Threads and Ribbons page on their website.

Today's the last day to sign up for my December give-away: Two beautiful spools of Gilt Sylke Twist, along with a few other delightful little needlework items of the season. If you haven't signed up yet, do read the original post and leave your comment (according to the instructions)! I'll announce the winner tomorrow!

Labels: embroidery resources, pictures, ribbon embroidery, silk, threads

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Posted By: Mary Corbet on Tuesday, December 09, 2008
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Milner Craft Series has a new book out (as of March, 2008), called Floral Interpretations for Silk Ribbon, by Helen Dafter. I've just had the pleasure of perusing the book, which is a great resource for embroiderers interested in silk ribbon embroidery. So here's a review, with indications of what's in it, and what I like about it.

Whether you like silk ribbon embroidery for accenting crazy quilts, or you use silk ribbon flowers to embellish paper embroidery, or you dabble with silk ribbon to make articles for home decoration, the book Floral Interpretations for Silk Ribbon would be right up your alley.



True to the format of the Milner Craft Series books, you'll find all the useful background information on essential embroidery supplies, techniques, pattern transfer, and so forth at the beginning of the book. For the stitcher new to silk ribbon, there's a good bit of information on different types and sizes of ribbon and what they can be used for. You'll also find a good stitch dictionary for the various silk ribbon stitches employed in the book, as well as for regular embroidery stitches that accent a silk ribbon piece.



But, as usual, what I find most enticing are the projects! In this book, they are arranged according to flower. You'll find projects for all kinds of flowers: lavendar, violas, grape hyacinth, gardenias, daffodils, gerbera daisies, camellia sasanqua (new one to me...), cornflower, flannel flower, roses, crab apple, and daisies.



In each project section, you'll find a general blurb about the flower, as well as a watercolor interpretation of it. The watercolors are very handy, because it gives you a sense of the shading, position, placement, growth pattern, and artistic look of the flower.

You'll also find information on what stitches are used to produce a realistic flower using silk ribbon.



You'll also get a photo of the finished project. I love seeing photographs of finished pieces when I'm working on something - they give an invaluable guideline for producing what you're trying to produce!



And, of course, you'll also find the pattern for the piece, in a black and white line drawing suitable for tracing.

Again, the projects are arranged according to flower, rather than according to ease of work. I think that's ok, though. The book is thorough enough to give the beginner a good resource to learn the techniques, and at the same time, it's diverse enough to enchant the expert with inspirational material!

Even though I don't use silk ribbon too often, I'm always thrilled when I finish a silk ribbon project. My most recent venture in silk ribbon was this little box decorated with silk ribbon embroidery, and other than that, I've done several greeting cards and other little pieces over the years. I've also used silk ribbon as accents on different embroidery pieces, like notebook covers and whatnot.

Do you want to know what I like best about silk ribbon embroidery, though? (Besides the fact that I think it's really pretty?) ... it's the fact that silk ribbon works up fast! With relatively few actual stitches, you can produce the item you're embroidering and see very quickly a finished piece coming together. A whole petal, or a stem, or a leaf, might just take one stitch! I love that!

What I like about this book is that it takes silk ribbon beyond just the basic quick stitching to a whole new level of realistic and beautiful interpretations of flowers - perfect for filling out any stitcher's repertoire!

So, if you like the idea of playing around with silk ribbons and trying out some pretty stitches for pretty results, take a look at Floral Interpretations for Silk Ribbon by Helen Dafter. The book is distributed in the US by Sterling Publishers, who produce a wonderful array of craft and needlework books. You can pick up the book through Amazon for less than $15, which is about $5 less than the publisher's price.

Enjoy!

Labels: beginner embroidery, book review, ribbon embroidery

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Posted By: Mary Corbet on Saturday, June 28, 2008
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This past weekend, I had a million things to do, and that awful sensation of not knowing where to start. I couldn't start my next Big Embroidery Project, because I didn't have one Big chunk of time to get things set up. So I took up a little embroidery project instead - a small silk ribbon embroidery kit that finishes as a little keepsake box.

This is a Bucilla ribbon embroidery kit. A friend gave me a slew of these kits (well, three or four), in case I wanted to use them for my summer embroidery classes. They actually do make great prizes - I gave one as a prize last year. But I thought, for the fun of it, I'd work one up to see how thorough Bucilla kits are.

Bucilla is a well-known name in needlework kits, simply because they're everywhere. You can find them at any local hobby or craft store. But I don't know much about their actual quality, as I've never used one of their kits. So this was an adventure (in a low-key kind of way!), and it was something to do late at night, without having to dig out a big project.

This is the finished product - a fairly sturdy keepsake box, topped by a little silk ribbon embroidery design.



The pros of the kit:

1. I like the idea of the box. It's pretty, it's sturdy, it has a magnetic closure, and it's useful.

2. The stitches are super-duper simple stitches, accessible to any beginner, and the stitch diagrams in the instructions are clear.

3. The project is small enough to be completed in one evening.

4. The overall finished product is attractive.

5. The kits are relatively inexpensive. In fact, for me, they were free (thanks, Amy!). They were bought on clearance, which is always a good way to pick up little projects inexpensively.

The cons of the kit:

1. The fabric is too small, and it's kind of cheapy fabric. If it is supposed to be hooped up, as directed, the beginner might wonder how to accomplish that. You'd have to sew extra fabric around it if you wanted it to fit in a hoop, unless you had a three inch hoop. A four inch hoop is too big, even. I worked it in hand, which isn't so easy with ribbon embroidery, French knots, and so forth.

2. The print of the design was a little off center. This is noticeable when the piece is finished and mounted on the box.

3. There wasn't enough light purple ribbon, but there was enough dark purple, so I just substituted that.

4. They used simple stitches, I guess with the beginner in mind. But there are ribbon stitches that are equally simple that would have been more attractive for some of the flowers. The bunches on each side of the spider web (pale yellow) rose are ok, but not that attractive. But I will grant that they are simple - they are cross stitches with a French knot in the middle.

5. For the spider web rose, they specified the light yellow ribbon, with the spokes worked in the same color floss. Strangely enough, there was only dark green and dark purple floss. No pale yellow in the kit. I could have used the dark green - and probably should have - but instead, I used the ribbon for the spokes.

6. Mounting problems: they supply on the box two borders of double-sided sticky tape (already on the box - you just remove the top strip). The inside border is where you mount the fabric, and after you've stretched it and mounted it on this sticky tape, you are supposed to trim the fabric straight along the edge of the tape. This would be done easily with a ruler and a rotary cutter (carefully - you don't want to slice the box through). But they didn't specifiy that. I started with scissors, but it was a messy job. Then, the outside mounting strip is for the window covering of the top of the box. It doesn't work. The top would not stay stuck, even when I piled some heavy books on top of the box to press it down. So I resorted to Elmer's glue, and glued it on. For good measure, I also glued the edges of the fabric. Then I wiped any excess off with a damp towel, and I piled books on top of the box overnight for it to dry. That worked.

7. Finally, you can see the pattern of the box behind the fabric when it's mounted. If you're expected to put a lining behind that, they should specify!



That's the inside of the box.

Despite the longer list of cons, I think it was a good Quick Project. I'm happy to have the box and the other kits, which I'll work up over a couple evenings. They'll make great prizes for the kids' classes!

Labels: beginner embroidery, Embroidery Projects, needlework pictures, pictures, ribbon embroidery

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Posted By: Mary Corbet on Thursday, June 12, 2008
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Just so you know right off the bat, this isn't one of my embroidery video tutorials. I was squizzing around the internet the other day looking at stumpwork, when I came across some nice sites and some tutorials.

The following video tutorial is for a gathered flower - the finished product is a flower made up of petals of gathered ribbon, with beads or French knots in the center. The teacher on the video is Di van Niekerk, who wrote the book Ribbon Embroidery and Stumpwork, which I've reviewed.

If you haven't seen Di van Niekerk's website, Crafts Unlimited, you should take a look at it. She's got heaps of beautiful stuff on there. For example, there's a whole page of royalty-free downloadable images perfect for all kinds of craft applications. They would make a great starting point for embroidery pieces, either with ribbon or thread or both. You can also print the designs on paper or on fabric and stitch over them, or use them for greeting cards and so forth. I think my favorite downloadable image is "Mother Goose."



The images aren't free - they are about US$13.08, according to today's conversion rates. The investment would be worth it for a royalty free image that you can use over and over again in different applications, especially if you're looking for a starting point for some ribbon embroidery or stumpwork!

Probably the most tempting thing on her site, for me, is her book A Perfect World, which is another panel embroidery featuring small motifs in stumpwork and ribbon work, much like the one featured in her previous book, Ribbon Embroidery and Stumpwork. The finished product looks fantastic, and each of the little motifs could be worked individually in smaller projects.



While you're looking at the book, be sure to click on the "Glimpse of A Perfect World" underneath the book image, which will take you to a flash preview of the book that you can flip through. Nice! You can pick up the book through Amazon right now for just over $17 new, which is a good deal!



Here's Di van Niekerk's video tutorial for a gathered ribbon flower. Enjoy!



For more video tutorials of hand embroidery stitches, be sure to visit my Video Library of Hand Embroidery Stitches, where you'll find video tutorials for about 46 stitches!

Labels: book review, embroidery books, ribbon embroidery, stumpwork, video tutorials

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Posted By: Mary Corbet on Monday, February 25, 2008
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