March 8, 2019

Folk Embroidered Felt Birds – Book Review

Time for a book review! And today’s book review is all about fun!

Folk Embroidered Felt Birds is a new book coming out at the beginning of April here in the US. It’s packed full of – you guessed it! – folk embroidered felt birds!

And they’re delightful! If you love birds (I love birds) and you like the look of folk embroidery, and you like working with felt to make three dimensional objects, then you need to add this book to your library.

It’s one of those books that just makes me happy when I flip through it. Let me show it to you…

Folk Embroidered Felt Birds by Corinne Lapierre - book review

Hand Embroidery Tutorials

March 6, 2019

How to Stitch with Variegated Threads – Part I: Off the Skein & Reversed

Last week, we chatted briefly about variegated threads. I’ve talked about using variegated threads for hand embroidery before, and at the end of this article, I’ll link to a few previous discussions and projects where variegated embroidery threads have played a role.

In a two-part series of articles, I’m going to share with you four different ways you can use variegated threads in hand embroidery, each way giving a slightly different result to your finished stitching.

In Part I of this series, we’ll look at the first two simple ways you can use variegated threads. They require no planning or forethought and no special approach. In Part II of the series, we’ll look at two different ways to use variegated threads, equally easy, but which require a little more planning or forethought.

How to Use Variegated Threads for Hand Embroidery, Part I

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March 4, 2019

Putting Things in Perspective: Size & Photography with Embroidery

When I first started exploring embroidery with any seriousness, one of my favorite resources was this old (as in almost 100 years old) book on ecclesiastical embroidery.

Whenever I looked at that old book, I yearned to see the details of the embroidery in those black and white photos. The photos were good – but most of them were never detailed enough for me. I used a magnifying glass at one point, thinking it might give me better detail. But the detail you can see in a photo is only as good as the detail caught by the camera.

Fast forward to today. The digital camera and the smartphone have completely changed not only the way we take pictures, but also the way we view them. The high-resolution digital picture has a marvelous capacity for zooming in on the details.

And this is beneficial for embroidery explorations – but it has a drawback here and there, too, which we’ll chat about below.

Case in point: the finished leafy tree I shared with you on Friday.

This is the photo of the finished piece that I shared with you:

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March 1, 2019

Should I Leaf it Alone? An Embroidery Finish

Do you ever second guess your embroidery finishes, after you finished them with (what you thought was) satisfaction?

This happens to me frequently, and I think it’s mostly because I take photos of my embroidery projects to share with you. Sometimes, it’s not until I start going through photos that I see things I don’t like as well as I thought I did.

Be that as it may, I’m officially finished with the leafy tree, even though there is a little part of me that might go back and change one silly leaf.

Hand Embroidery Patterns

February 27, 2019

Paying Tribute to the Rose: Embroidery Designs & Stitches

Roses are a staple in the wider art world and in the more specific world of embroidered art, and for all kinds of good reasons. Among those reasons is the obvious fact that they are beautiful flowers. Another reason? Roses have been used symbolically throughout history – from heraldic symbolism to religious symbolism to personal and sentimental symbolism, roses have meaning.

When it comes to design, you can find all kinds of rose designs out there, from the very stylized to the very realistic.

The rose-related embroidery designs here on Needle ‘n Thread are stylized rather than realistic. Most of them are inspired by the symbolic roses that show up in ecclesiastical or heraldic needlework and art from past centuries. Extracted into single design elements or distilled into smaller designs, they make lovely options for embroidered art.

Besides a plethora of rose-related embroidery designs, you’ll find a few stitch tutorials available here, too, for embroidering roses.

So, today, a short tribute to the rose – a beautiful flower worthy of your embroidery efforts!

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February 25, 2019

Weekend Embroidery: That Stylized Flower Line & Hoop Crushing

Last week, I mentioned I was cold, so I set up a springy embroidery project that would help warm the cockles of my heart – or at least, would dissipate some of the winter gloom that has settled over Kansas.

To keep the blood flowing, I decided to continue with this particularly cheery project this weekend during my bouts of embroidery.

As I was traipsing through the stylized flower line with needle and thread, trying to bring the flowers to some kind of life, my mind automatically categorized the things I like about it … and the things I don’t.

Because a hoop is an integral part of this project, I also contemplated a common question about embroidery hoops that occasionally shows up in my inbox. I’ll address it below while sharing all my Profound Musings on this project.

Embroidered Line of Stylized Flowers for household linens

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February 22, 2019

Thread Talk: Variegated Embroidery Threads – Thoughts & Questions

Variegated embroidery threads are embroidery threads that change color within the same thread.

We refer to variegated threads with other names – like over-dyed threads, space dyed threads, and so forth. But all of these threads share the characteristic of variegation. When there is variegation in a thread (that is, changes in color), it falls under the general category of a variegated thread.

From there, threads can be subcategorized based on dyeing methods. Some dyeing methods produce very subtle variegation, while others produce very vivid and bold variegation. Some rely on building colors upon colors, while others don’t. But in essence, if there’s a change in color within the thread, it’s a variegated thread.

Strangely enough, it took me years to discover that I could actually like and use variegated threads in surface embroidery. I used to have an aversion to them…

Variegated threads for hand embroidery - DMC Variations & Other Variegated Threads

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How-To
Videos

Embroidery Tips & Techniques

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Folk Embroidered Felt Birds – Book Review

How to Stitch with Variegated Threads – Part I: Off the Skein & Reversed

Putting Things in Perspective: Size & Photography with Embroidery

Should I Leaf it Alone? An Embroidery Finish

Paying Tribute to the Rose: Embroidery Designs & Stitches

Weekend Embroidery: That Stylized Flower Line & Hoop Crushing

Thread Talk: Variegated Embroidery Threads – Thoughts & Questions

Connect with Mary

How-To Videos

Embroidery Tips & Techniques

Connect with Mary

How-To
Videos