July 5, 2019

Embroidery Kitting Adventures – On Boxes and Thread

This week and last, and probably all of next week, there’s one thing on my mind: getting The Leafy Tree embroidery kit and the instructional e-book finished and ready for you!

A couple weeks ago, I showed you my fabric sticks for the Leafy Tree kits. All the components are now arrived and ready to package into kit form – with the exception of half of the boxes…but more on that below.

So now the fun part! When the fun part starts – that is, the assembling of everything – there’s not much room for anything else to go on in the studio. Kitting pretty much takes over the work area, especially with this particular kit, which contains an abundance of embroidery thread.

Hand Embroidery Books

July 3, 2019

Embroidered Country Gardens – Book Review

July is finally here, and this month – in just over a week – a book that I’ve been waiting to see for quite a while will be available!

If you love floral garden embroidery, especially if you like stitching small motifs that have an exuberant garden feel to them, you’re just going to love this book – Embroidered Country Gardens by Lorna Bateman.

The book covers a wide variety of garden elements that are stitched into various garden scenes that adorn several finished projects. So it’s an instructional book, an idea book, and a project book all rolled into one.

Let’s take a look at it, shall we?

Embroidered Country Gardens by Lorna Bateman

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July 1, 2019

Needlepainting, Silk Shading, Soft Shading, Thread Painting…

It goes by so many names, this technique of creating realistic shading in embroidery.

But no matter what name it goes by, and whether there are slight nuances in the meanings of the different names, all the techniques named above involve the dominant use of long & short stitch.

I use the terms in today’s title pretty much interchangeably, while I use the specific term long & short stitch to refer to the stitching technique used to shade – and which can also be used as a solid filling technique, too.

Lately, I’ve received several questions from beginners on how to get started with the techniques used in needlepainting.

So today, I want to share some resources that will help the embroiderer – whether beginner, novice, or advanced – take the plunge into needlepainting and learn how to successfully shade in embroidery.

Needlepainting Embroidery: Resources for Learning, for beginners & beyond

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June 28, 2019

Embroidery Stitch Templates – for Straight & Uniform Stitches

A few weeks ago, I reviewed Kathy Shaw’s new book, Stunning Stitches for Crazy Quilts. You can read that review here.

When I wrote about this little stitch sampler needlebook, I received quite a bit of feedback about the difficulties of keeping stitches and lines straight and consistent. With my little sampler, I used the linen to guide my lines and keep them straight, but we don’t always work on fabric with an easy-to-see weave.

And that’s where these embroidery stitch templates designed by Kathy Shaw and distributed by Creative Impressions come in handy. I thought I’d show them to you today, in case they are something that can benefit you in your embroidery journey. I’m going to explain what they are, how they’re used, and share some pros and cons with you.

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June 26, 2019

Weekend Stitching: Embroidering a Different Scene

Good morning and Happy Wednesday! This morning, just a quick update on last weekend’s stitching!

I’ve been embroidering up some small garden border designs for upcoming summer classes.

Remember the mushroom question from last week? Well, I put that one aside until I can adjust it a bit, and I moved on to the next garden scene, which has a few more elements in it and is for older participants.

Hand Embroidery Books

June 24, 2019

Indexing 100 Issues of Inspirations!

Last year, when Inspirations Studios produced the new index for issues 1 – 100 of Inspirations Magazine, there was no doubt in my mind that I needed one.

I have all the issued of Inspirations, thanks to my sister, who passed me all the older issues from the earlier years of the magazine.

Each issue is a delight, full of beautiful embroidery projects for every level of stitcher. There is a certain classic timelessness to most of the projects in the magazines, so they never really seem to age. I never grow tired of flipping through them!

But … there are times when I want to find a certain project that I know I’ve seen in one issue or another, and it takes a long time to flip through those individual magazines.

And that’s why a magazine index comes in so very handy. But the new 1 – 100 index is handier than most, thanks to the meticulous details in its arrangement. This is perhaps the most thorough search tool ever produced for a magazine!

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June 22, 2019

Fabric Sticks for Embroidery Kits … & Other News

I was going to title today’s blog post (which is actually yesterday’s blog post, but I had a publishing hold-up yesterday morning) “I’ll Give You Three Guesses.”

But then I started looking at the things, and I figured many of you would guess right away, anyway.

One of my biggest behind-the-scenes projects during June has been preparing embroidery kits and instructions for The Leafy Tree, a project I finished a while ago and for which I received many, many requests for a kit.

And so I’m putting together a kit.

This is one of the features of the kit, and although it’s time-consuming, I think it’s worth it:

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Embroidery Tips & Techniques

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Embroidery Kitting Adventures – On Boxes and Thread

Embroidered Country Gardens – Book Review

Needlepainting, Silk Shading, Soft Shading, Thread Painting…

Embroidery Stitch Templates – for Straight & Uniform Stitches

Weekend Stitching: Embroidering a Different Scene

Indexing 100 Issues of Inspirations!

Fabric Sticks for Embroidery Kits … & Other News

Connect with Mary

How-To Videos

Embroidery Tips & Techniques

Connect with Mary

How-To
Videos