About

Mary Corbet

writer and founder

 

I learned to embroider when I was a kid, when everyone was really into cross stitch (remember the '80s?). Eventually, I migrated to surface embroidery, teaching myself with whatever I could get my hands on...read more

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At Long Last! English Medieval Embroidery by Christie – for All!

 

Amazon Books

Well, this week, one of my Christmas Wishes of Old came true.

For years and years and years, I’ve longed for my own copy of Grace Christie’s monumental work of research, English Medieval Embroidery: A Brief Survey of English Embroidery Dating from the Beginning of the Tenth Century to the End of the Fourteenth, published in 1938.

This Massive Tome is pretty rare. I’ve been fortunate to spend some time with it in the Topeka Public Library’s rare book rooms, but it’s hard to have enough time with a book, comfortably, when you’re in a supervised library room, wearing white gloves and under the watchful eye of the librarian who apparently expects that you are going to do I-Don’t-Know-What with the book. Steal it? Ample as I am, I don’t think I could discretely stuff this book down my shirt. It’s Huge! (Uh, not that I would, even if I could…)

English Medieval Embroidery by Christie
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The Christmas Mitten 4: The Remaining Embroidery

 

Happy Monday and welcome to the fourth installment of The Christmas Mitten! I hope you had a great weekend and have enjoyed stitching the project so far!

Today, we’re going to finish up the embroidery on the decorative front of the mitten. We’ll be doing bands 12 through 19.

If you’re just joining us for this project, you’ll find all the lessons so far – including materials lists, patterns, set-up, and the previous stitching – listed here in the Christmas Mitten Project Index.

If you would like to procure a complete materials list to create this cute little ornament, you’ll find the materials kits available here.

For those who are members of the Needle ‘n Thread community on Patreon, you’ve already received the instructions below in the first PDF that’s available over there for download and easy printing.

The Christmas Mitten 4: Completing the Embroidery
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Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Well, it’s Turkey Day here in the States – that is, Thanksgiving Day – the day we celebrate all the things that we’re thankful for.

You, my friends, are right up there at the top of my List! I am so grateful for you – your inspiration, your encouragement, your interest in needle arts, and the general camaraderie that you’ve helped build around our little online community of Needle ‘n Thread.

You are what makes Needle ‘n Thread special, because without you, Needle ‘n Thread wouldn’t happen. It’s that simple.

Happy Thanksgiving, 2024
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The Christmas Mitten 3: Embroidery Bands 6 – 11

 

Welcome back to our stitch-along for The Christmas Mitten! Today, we’re on Part 3, where exploring the next six bands of embroidery on the mitten.

If you’re just joining us for this project, you’ll find all the lessons so far – including materials lists, patterns, set-up, and the first stitches – listed here in the Christmas Mitten Project Index.

If you would like to procure a complete materials list to create this cute little ornament, you’ll find the materials kits available here.

For those who are members of the Needle ‘n Thread community on Patreon, you’ve already received the instructions below in the first PDF that’s available over there for download and easy printing.

And now, on to the stitching!

The Christmas Mitten part 3: embroidered bands 6 - 11
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The Christmas Mitten Project Index

 

In order to keep things organized, here’s The Christmas Mitten Project Index, where I will list each lesson as it is published on Needle ‘n Thread.

If you bookmark this project index, you can come back to the page on Needle ‘n Thread to find each lesson. That way, if you get delayed in the project, or you want to work it again, or you want to go back to a previous lesson, you can easily find the index.

You’ll find all the project indexes for different stitch-along projects under “Tips and Techniques” in the main menu on Needle ‘n Thread. This will be the current Index at the top of the list.

The Christmas Mitten Project Index
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The Christmas Mitten 2: Stitching Tips & Bands 1 – 5

 

It’s Friday! Yay!! And you know what that means? We’re moving forward with The Christmas Mitten today!

If you’re just joining in on this project, the Christmas Mitten is a stitch-along here on Needle ‘n Thread, where we will be working together through the embroidery and finishing of a sampler-style Christmas Mitten ornament. You can read all the details about the stitch-along here, if you’d like to see how it works.

We offer a full materials kit for the stitch-along. It includes everything you need to create your own mitten ornament, with plenty of thread and beads left over.

If you’re a member of the Needle ‘n Thread Community on Patreon, you have already received this installment. In fact, the PDF posted yesterday on Patreon covers all the embroidery on the mitten project. I can’t quite fit as much information in a blog post as I can in a PDF, so I went ahead and prepared all the embroidery instructions for this project in the first PDF.

Earlier this week, I published the patterns, and we set up the project and transferred it. You can read all about that process here.

Today, we’re going to discuss some stitching tips that apply to the project as a whole, and then we’ll embroider the first five bands on the mitten.

Christmas Mitten embroidery stitch-along
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Open House, Windows and a Door – Plus More!

 

I mentioned a couple weeks back that we’re having our first-ever, in-person Christmas Open House at Needle ‘n Thread this year. We’re pretty excited about it! Anna and I have been working and planning for this for many weeks!

The Open House will take place over two weekends: Friday and Saturday, November 29 & 30, and Friday and Saturday, December 6 & 7. All four days, we’ll be open for visitors from 1:00 – 6:00 PM.

We’re located in a small town in Northeast Kansas – St. Marys – about halfway between Topeka and Manhattan, KS, along state highway 24. In fact, we’re located right on Highway 24 at 501 Bertrand Ave. If you can make it through either weekend, we’d love to meet you!

Open House at Needle 'n Thread - Banner
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