On weekends, I always imagine I’ll get more embroidery done than I actually do get done.

I imagine, on weekends, that I’ll have longer chunks of quiet time to stitch; that I won’t have as much computer work to do; that there won’t be many drop-ins since the rest of the people in my world use the weekend to get stuff done at home or run errands and whatnot.

But it never works out that way.

This weekend, I played a game with myself. I timed my stitching.

Before we kick off the weekend, here’s a little Stitch Fun! tutorial to get your creative juices flowing!

Now, before I go any further, there’s a caveat. I used a really awful piece of linen in this. So my apologies ahead of time. Sometimes, you just don’t realize how lousy a piece of fabric is, until you see the results when you’re editing photos. I should have known, I should have known!

Lately, I’ve received a lot of requests for information on this particular approach to creating a rose with stem stitch. Usually, the request comes in the form of a photo emailed in. “What stitch is this? Do you have a tutorial?”

So I figured I’d work one up, for the next inquiry.

Here on Needle ‘n Thread, we’ve chatted quite a bit about hand embroidery needles. If you’re new to the website or the newsletter and you’ve missed those articles and you want to know more about needles used for hand embroidery, I’ll provide some links at the end of this article.

But today, I want to talk about needle sizes and stitching, about changing needle sizes for two different stitching scenarios.

I’m going to ask the wider Needle ‘n Thread community to pitch in their suggestions, too, at the end of the article, so make sure you revisit this article in the next day or so on Needle ‘n Thread to see what other stitchers have added to the topic!

Have you ever completed an embroidery project and looked at it a year later – or maybe even just months or weeks later – and wondered, “What color number is that?” or “Gosh, how many strands of floss did I actually use?” or “Did I stitch that first or this first?”

This morning’s embroidery bit isn’t so much a how-to tip as far as stitching goes. Rather, it’s a kind of organizational tip.

If you’re a prolific embroiderer, especially if you plan to do something in the long run with your embroidery – maybe you want to be a designer, maybe you want to teach classes, maybe you want to start a blog to document your needlework journey, maybe you’ll want to reproduce the same project again down the road, or maybe you just want to be able to remember what you did when – this tip is for you!

Good morning and a Happy Saturday all around!

Wherever you are this morning, I hope you’re having a lovely weekend! I’ve compiled a bit of a meander for your weekend reading – a little bit of needlework news, stirred up with some inspiration and instruction, some embroidery history, a good cause, and other bits and bobs!

So, you know the drill. Grab your favorite cup of something comforting, and lets go for a little stroll together! Tea this morning for me – and when it’s gone, so am I!

The last time we visited Party in Provence, this embroidered kaleidoscope that I’m covering in a step-by-step series, we concentrated on stitching all the little green swirls on the kaleidoscope.

The swirls are the structure that tie the outer elements on the design to the bold central pattern. Once they’re done, it’s time to add more color to the outside edge of the kaleidoscope.

So, today, we’re going to concentrate on adding the main components of the outside edge – they’re the fiery bits that add flare to the outer part of the design.

There’s a reason I chose the color scheme I did for this outer edge, and we’ll talk about that below, too!

Good morning, sweeties! Happy Valentine’s Day!

I really wanted to send everyone a big bunch of exuberant roses for Valentine’s Day today!

But since it’s also Ash Wednesday, I was thinking maybe it was a good opportunity to share some ecclesiastical embroidery with you.

Wonder of wonders! It just so happened to work out that I could do both.

So here are your roses and your ecclesiastical embroidery, all rolled into one neat package!