We have a summer stitch-along coming up here on Needle ‘n Thread, and today, I’ll sneak peek the project we’re preparing for you.
If you’re not familiar with our stitch-alongs on Needle ‘n Thread, I’ll also share some details about them below, so you can know what to expect.
When we first started doing these stitch-alongs – which I called Stitch Snippets – we were trying to fit in four a year. That become unmanageable. Now, we do two a year, one of which is usually a Christmas ornament. The other comes out somewhere in late spring or early summer. This year, it will be High Summer before we get started, I’m afraid.
But that’s appropriate because….
…it’s blackberry season!
Whether they’re used in illuminated borders highlighted with gold leaf, or as motifs in the illustrations of children’s books (Brambly Hedge, anyone?), whether painted or molded on tiles and reliefs of stone, or trailing up tapers of beeswax, or woven into linen damask – I find berries in art to be utterly charming.
For this stitch-along, we’ll be embroidering with thread and beads to produce a delicate, sweet design highlighting the blackberry. The goal is to demonstrate methods to produce semi-realistic embroidered blackberries, blossoms, and brambles, so that you can take these techniques and apply them to other projects along your embroidery journey.
Working out a design for any project takes a little doing. The process usually starts with doodling, which turns into creating a vector design for the project, and then more doodling with colors in a rather loose fashion.
On bigger projects, I might start with a design that’s been drawn and maybe even painted (watercolored), in a more formal way. But for these small projects, I like using Prismacolors (colored pencils) for quick mock-ups on a printed version of the line drawing of the embroidery pattern.
Sometimes, the outcome might look a little messy and even childish in a sense (see above!), but it gives us a general idea of where to go with colors when stitching samples.
For the stitch-alongs, we want something small that can be accomplished in a relatively short time.
We want embroidery techniques that are accessible and not overwhelming – whether you’re a beginner or beyond.
We need to make sure we have a supply line for kitting the project, and we explore the most economical options, so that the kits are affordable.
We test the design, we make innumerable tweaks, test the tweaks, make decisions, test those decisions, and on and on. It’s a process!
But we go through the process because I don’t want to produce something that will just “do.” I want to produce something that fits the image I had in mind, that is useful for accomplishing some learning goals, and that comes to a satisfactory, beautiful finish.
So the design we’ve developed for the upcoming stitch-along is this small wreath of blackberries, blossoms, and brambles. Although the close-up images might make the design look huge, it fits within a 5″ hoop.
At this point, the design is called Blackberries, Blossoms, & Brambles… even if it does sound a bit like an exclamation of some sort.
“Blackberries, blossoms, and brambles! Where in tarnation have I put my spectacles?!”
or, to borrow from our neighbor Dorothy and her friends: “Blackberries, blossoms, and brambles! Oh my!”
The name may change.
How Does a Stitch-Along Work?
A stitch-along is basically the step-by-step development of the embroidery project presented here on the website, in such a way that you can stitch it, too. During the course of a stitch-along, I publish on the blog everything you need to know to stitch the project.
I use photos and diagrams to illustrate techniques, I give you the design and materials lists, and I offer tips and troubleshooting along the way, so that you can successfully stitch the same thing I’m stitching.
With each stitch-along, we offer a complete materials kit so that you have all the same supplies I used for stitching the sample. This way, you don’t have to source supplies from various places and it saves you time and money. But we also supply a materials list, in case you can’t get, or don’t want, a kit.
Stitch-alongs are self-paced. You aren’t obliged to keep up with the publishing schedule of the lessons. I provide an index for every project, where you can find a chronological list of each lesson to follow along at your own pace. That way, if Life intervenes, no problem! You can come back to the blog and access the lessons through the project index.
In fact, you can find the indexes for all of the previous stitch-alongs on Needle ‘n Thread listed here, under Tips & Techniques, in the top section of “Hand Embroidery Lessons & Step-by-Step Projects” list. If you take a look at some of those, it will give you a good idea of what to expect with this one.
When planning a stitch-along, I develop the “teachable points” of the project: techniques that you can add to your own embroidery repertoire, that help you develop your embroidery skills, or that allow you to try something new and interesting that you might not have done before.
So you might join in on the stitch-along to learn something, but you also might just join in because you like the design, you want a project to work, you enjoy embroidering, or whatever reason you have! “Just for the fun of it” is a good enough reason – and probably the best reason!
Along with the lessons that are posted here on the blog in the normal blog format, members of the Needle ‘n Thread community on Patreon have the extra advantage of downloadable PDFs for each lesson, formatted for easy printing or viewing on a mobile device, that they can save to their computers or devices for use now or in the future. When possible, I also include videos for some membership levels. (Not every stitch-along involves video, though, just so you know!) Members also enjoy early shopping events, before the kits are released on the website.
Keep an Eye Out!
We don’t have an exact launch date for this stitch-along, but I suspect the kits won’t be available until close to the end of June. This means the stitch-along will likely start at the beginning of July.
I’ll keep you informed, and once we know, I’ll let you know when the kits will be available!
Also Coming Up!
We’re working on other exciting things behind the scenes, too!
In addition to stitching things, writing up instructions for things, working on shop inventory, and other daily work, we’ve got a couple fabulous book reviews coming up – one of which includes a give-away. Can’t wait to share these new books with you!
We’re also going to chat a little about design transfer processes, and we are going to re-visit questions concerning long and short stitch.
Next week, I have surgery scheduled for my trigger thumb on my right hand, so I’ll be down in Oklahoma mid-week for that. I have some blog posts lined up for you while I’m gone for that (two days, mid-week) and during recovery (which I hope happens very quickly). Please keep your fingers (and thumb) crossed for me!
Hope your week is off to a grand old start! Happy Monday!
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