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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Ecclesiastical Embroidery: Old Pattern Folios & a Free Design

 

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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.

Ecclesiastical Embroidery Pattern Folios
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Hand Embroidery Tips: Thread Taming & Organizing

 

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!

Hand Embroidery Tips - Thread Taming & Organizing
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When it Goes Amuck – And What to Do About It

 

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!

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Fabric for Embroidery: Plain Weave vs. Even Weave

 

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.

fabric for embroidery: plain weave vs even weave
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Embroidery Transfer Ideas with Copper Stencils

 

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.

Transferring monogram stencils to fabric using pens and pencils
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FiberTalk – it’s a Fun Chat!

 

Last week, I chalked up a new experience!

In the evening hours on Tuesday, I went out to my workroom, cleared some space on the table amongst an ever-growing pile embroidery threads and current stitching projects, and set up a laptop with a mic and some headphones.

Then, I connected via Skype with Gary Parr and Christine Williams of FiberTalk, a podcast for fiber art hobbyists, to enjoy an hour and a half of spontaneous conversation about stitching and such.

FiberTalk podcast for fiber artists
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Silk Hand Embroidery Thread 101: Flat Silk

 

Recently, we’ve been talking about using silk thread for hand embroidery. My hope is that this short series of articles will help encourage stitchers to give silk a try (if you haven’t already tried it, or you’re intimidated by it), or to encourage you to try different types of silk embroidery threads.

First, we discussed getting started with silk thread, focusing on stranded, spun silk, which behaves much the same way as stranded cotton, with the advantage of having a nicer luster, a softer “spread” and a natural sheen.

Then, we looked at filament silks, particularly twisted filament silk. In that article, we discussed what filament silk is (compared to spun silk), I provided some links to tips on how to stitch with it and to some examples of embroidery worked with filament silk, and we discussed brands and resources.

Today, we’re going to talk about flat silk, which is untwisted (or so barely twisted you can’t see the twist) filament silk.

We’ll discuss what it is and what it’s like to stitch with, I’ll refer you to some examples of embroidery worked with it, you can peruse a list of articles for further explorations, and I’ll give you a list of resources in case you want to jump into embroidering with flat silk!

Silk Hand Embroidery Thread: Filament Silk
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