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:

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.

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…

This week’s to-do list on Monday morning included setting up two embroidery projects that I’ll be working on after I finish the leafy tree project.

I like to set up embroidery projects a little in advance of a finish, so that when I finish a project, I’ll have something to start stitching on right away. With these two new projects, my plan was to get them set up this week, but not to stitch on them.

First, I need to finish the leafy tree. I have three more leaves on it. They’ll take a total of, what? Thirty minutes, maybe! I just haven’t tackled those yet.

Then, I have a bunch of computer work begging for my attention, so the next three work days must involve focusing on the computer. I can’t just lallygag around stitching – not when my computer is insisting on work, right?

So of course I’m not going to start stitching on any new project right now! There are priorities, after all!