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
Contact Mary
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
Contact Mary
January 28, 2016
Happy Thursday!
Today, I want to introduce to you all a wonderful new website for those of you who love historical embroidery and reproduction samplers, show you one of their charts, and point you to a really sweet free pattern that I want to use for a particular stitching technique.
January 26, 2016
I have to show this to you!
Remember that list of Things to Do in 2016 from last week? Well, embroidery on felt is one of them.
I love embroidering on felt! I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I had so much fun with this needlebook years and years ago. It was such a “free form” project – no rules, no preconceived ideas. Just stitching whatever occurred to me.
Yes, that was certainly the beginning of my romance with stitching on felt.
Well, for Christmas, I received the most adorable little felt pincushion from a very kind reader. And I have to show it to you, so that you can see that stitching on felt can be creative, delicate, and addictive!
January 21, 2016
You know that Long List of Things to Do in 2016 that I posted the other day?
Well, I left off one little thing.
Well, actually…I left off several little things.
I left them off on purpose, because I thought they weren’t really worth mentioning. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that these little stitchy things have given me a lot of pleasure lately – more so, perhaps, than any of my larger projects.
See, my larger projects – the projects that you see most frequently on Needle ‘n Thread – require me to traipse out to my workroom, to work in isolation in a rather lonely, cold environment, under glaring lights, sometimes using magnification, never in a really comfy chair, always with a certain level of concentration, always with a camera handy, always thinking about the article that will accompany the photos, always planning next steps… you get the idea.
But I have a collection of tiny little kits that provide me with just the opposite experience. They are my secret little indulgence.
January 19, 2016
Do you have an embroidery wish list? Those things you want to do, that keep adding up in a long, never-ending list of Stitching Adventures?
I do. If I look at it as a whole, I realize that life is probably too short to fit it all in. So I like to break it down a bit.
Before January struck and the year turned over, I made a list of Embroidery (and other needlework-related) Adventures for 2016.
In the last few weeks, I’ve mapped out my Plan of Attack for 2016. Now that I’ve done that, I can share with you my official 2016 list with greater confidence that we might actually see most of it!
The funny thing is, even my yearly list is a bit much. In reality, I know I won’t complete everything on it, but I’ll at least get it started.
I figure if I aim high, then when I land at the end of the year, I’ll be further along than otherwise.
January 15, 2016
Happy Friday all around!
Today, I’m going to take you through my latest tiny stitching adventure and tell you my thought processes and how they didn’t work, but then how they did work, and hopefully convince you that it’s ok to plow ahead even when the results of your stitching are looking a bit dim.
My adventure started when I succumbed to the temptation of working the elements of Late Harvest (an embroidery project designed by Hazel Blomkamp and featured in her book Crewel Intentions) completely out of order.
January 14, 2016
It’s been a long time since I’ve posted a free surface embroidery pattern, so this morning, I thought I’d share a little heart I’ve been dabbling with.
There’s something a little Valentine’s Day-ish and a little St. Patrick’s Day-ish combined in this design – sort of hearty, sort of shamrocky, and good for all kinds of craft techniques.
Here ’tis:
January 11, 2016
You might remember that, last autumn, I was fiddling around a bit with some fun needle woven fillings that can be used to add color, texture, and pattern to large areas of embroidery.
Needle weaving is pretty much just weaving embroidery thread on the surface of fabric. In concept, it’s not too complicated. But the results that you can achieve by following a variety of patterns and by working with different types of threads, colors, textures, and whatnot are pretty amazing!
If you’ve had a bit of a hankering to try out needle weaving on your embroidery projects, you’re in luck! Hazel Blomkamp has put together a terrific little instructional book called Needle Weaving Techniques for Hand Embroidery, and it’s chockfull of so many patterns that you’ll never tire of the offerings!
I’m excited about this instructional book! Let me show you why…
