Quite a while ago, we talked about this Jacobean-ish embroidery design that I keep toying with.

I set the design up on new fabric (a natural-colored linen), and collected threads for it.

Finally, the other day, I started some stitching on it.

Today, I’ll show you some minute initial progress as I work my way through the beginning of the project; I’ll tell you my thought processes; and we’ll talk about gradual shade and color changes when you’re working with solid colors in linear stitching.

Happy Monday!

This past weekend, I put the finishing stitches in this little embroidered garden scene that I showed you a couple weeks ago.

This is the scene we’ll be using for kids’ classes this summer. What I like about it – besides that it’s a bright, cheery summer scene – is that it doesn’t look as basic as it actually is!

And there’s plenty of room to make it even simpler, or to dress it up and make things a bit more complex, all depending on the level of the embroiderer or the amount of time the embroiderer wants to put into the project.

I’ll explain what I mean below, sharing some tips for simplifying or dressing up basic embroidery designs like these.

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.

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.

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.

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.