Since the last time I updated you on this 56-count silk gauze project, I’ve progressed on it a lot more than I realized.

This means one of two things: Either, 1. I’ve had a whole lot of 15 minute stitching sessions; or 2. Those sessions have been a whole lot longer than 15 minutes.

Happy Easter!

I just wanted to pop in to spread a little Easter cheer and wish you and yours a joyful day!

I’ll also share some spring stitching ideas, for those who are moving into spring – which has been rather slow in developing this year, but it looks like it’s finally here to stay (in Kansas, anyway!).

If you’ve been hanging about a bit on Needle ‘n Thread for a while, you probably know that ecclesiastical embroidery is kind of a Thing of mine. It’s what originally pulled me into taking embroidery seriously as an art and led me into learning different techniques.

Ever since my first infatuation with ecclesiastical embroidery – especially historical examples of it – I’ve been collecting old embroideries and old pattern folios.

I think the pattern folios are pretty fascinating! They’re large envelopes or board covers (often tied together with ribbon) filled with massive fold-out sheets of patterns.

The patterns themselves are ingeniously arranged, so that there’s no wasted space in the printing. Often, when patterns are meant to be repeated or substitutions can be made, letters and lines indicate the connections and suitable substitutions. Looking at these old pattern pages – and using them! – is kind of like putting together a puzzle.

Today, I’ll show you some examples of typical pattern pages and how the designer gets as much use out of space as possible. We’ll also talk a little bit about symbolism, and I’ll share a pattern from an old portfolio that’s cleaned up and user-friendly.

Whether you’re new to embroidery or you’ve been stitching a while, you either have, or will – inevitably – run into certain frustrations with thread!

Now, if you’re a thread junkie, chances are, you’ll try a lot of different threads in your needlework explorations. Your experience, good or bad, will determine whether or not you ever use that thread again.

Unfortunately, a bad experience can often turn us off a good thread.

Over the years, I’ve written many articles about hand embroidery threads, with heaps of tips that can improve your experience with them, especially with those that are troublesome in one way or another.

Funny thing is, even the most basic hand embroidery threads have their annoying aspects. Hopefully, these tips will help you avoid the annoyances and just revel in the pleasure of threads!

Do you ever have one of those stitching sessions (or two…or three…or ten) when everything seems to go amuck?

I recently had several of those stitching sessions.

And they got me thinking that I’m probably not the only one in the world who experiences less-than-satisfactory bouts of stitching now and then.

So I thought I’d tell you about mine and the way I handle them. These particular two may not seem like a big deal, but we’ll talk about that, too!

And, as a bonus (I use the term loosely), you’ll be getting a sneak peek of some spring critters that are in the works for a couple projects!

Good morning and a Happy Friday all around!

When it comes to hand embroidery, probably the Most Important consideration for any project is the fabric that you plan to stitch on.

It seems strange to say that the fabric is more important than, say, the design you plan to stitch. Or more important even than the threads you plan to use.

But to help clarify my assertion, think about it: without something to embroidery on, there’s really no point to embroidery at all!

So let’s have a little chat about fabric, and more specifically, about fabric that is used widely in the needlework world – specifically, linen, and more specifically, even-weave and plain-weave linen and the differences between them.

Last week, we looked at these beautiful copper sheet stencils that were used back in the day to transfer initials to household items for embroidering.

I played around with some ready-at-hand transfer mediums (also known as pens and pencils!) that I thought might work with the stencils. Today, I’ll show you those, including the one I settled on that worked well for transferring the letters in preparation for some simple embroidery.

I still want to fiddle about with other transfer ideas. There are two in particular I’d like to experiment with, but I haven’t gotten around to pulling out the mess yet!

In the meantime, though, here’s what I did with the stencils and some pens and pencils.