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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A Controversial Little Embroidery Tool that I Love

 

Amazon Books

How can an embroidery tool be controversial?

Well, controversial might be an exaggeration – it’s not as if the use of a specific tool for a hobby is a matter of serious debate or anything, and a tool’s use is hardly a matter of principle on which we’d stake our lives.

But surprisingly, there’s one little tool that I think is super-handy for embroidery, that weighs in on a love-hate scale.

There are lots of people who use these tiny tools all the time, whose stitching lives wouldn’t be complete with them, while others avoid them with vehemence.

I fall on the side of over-use of them. I love ’em. I use ’em. I rarely stitch without ’em.

I present to you My Case in Favor of the Magnet.

Magnets for Needlework
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Stumpwork by Celeste Chalasani – An Overview & Design Tip

 

This morning, I’m excited to share with you a beautiful guest post for you from Celeste Chalasani.

Celeste will chat about what inspires her stumpwork projects and show us some of her favorite stumpwork embroidery pieces. She’ll also share a great design tip to help you come up with your own stumpwork designs. At the end of the article, you’ll find a discount link for Celeste’s class Stumpwork: Raised Embroidery Essentials on Craftsy, in case you want to explore three-dimensional stumpwork embroidery further.

So, prepare yourself for some gorgeous embroidery! To really enjoy the photos, feel free to click on them for larger versions. (All photos credited to Celeste Chalasani, except where noted.)

Celeste Chalasani Stumpwork Embroidery
Autumn Jewels (photo credit: Craftsy)
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Embroidery Frame vs. Embroidery Hoop – A Dilemma!

 

I have a dilemma. A Real Stitching Dilemma. And I’m hoping you can help me solve it!

If you’ve been reading Needle ‘n Thread a while, you’ve probably figured out that my Thing is surface embroidery of the free-style type. It’s what I love doing and what I do most, when it comes to needle-and-thread-related things.

But occasionally, I also enjoy a little foray into counted work.

Last year, I was challenged to undertake a very large counted project, one that will probably last years and years. I succumbed to the challenge, ordered the chart, accumulated and organized the 200 thread colors required, and prepared the fabric, so that I could at least get the gargantuan thing under way.

Vidal Madonna and Child in counted thread embroidery
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Late Harvest: A Long Stumpwork Leaf & Some Tips

 

A Fabulous Friday all around! Today, I’ll show you some progress on Late Harvest, discuss some woes and triumphs, offer some tips that you might find helpful in your own embroidery pursuits, and beat myself over the head for some deliberate oversights.

For those of you just joining in here on Needle ‘n Thread, one of my latest Pleasure Projects – one of those projects I’m working through just for the fun of it – is Late Harvest, designed by Hazel Blompkamp and featured in her book Crewel Intensions, which I reviewed in depth here.

And Late Harvest IS fun! Even though I run into many self-induced snags along the way, it’s rather exhilarating to work my way out of them and to make up my mind how to attack similar situations later on.

It’s a particularly fun project, too, because there’s enough variety in it that you don’t get bored doing the same thing over and over again.

At the same time, there’s enough similarity among many of the elements that you really have the opportunity to improve on certain skills. I figure there’s always room for improvement in every path of life, including my embroidery. Anything that makes me better, I like! Even if the experience can be kind of grueling at the time!

So, here’s a recap on my latest jaunt with Late Harvest.

Late Harvest Embroidery Project - Stumpwork Leaves
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Embroidery on Felt – a Wee Inspirational Piece

 

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!

Bottle cap pincushion with embroidered felt
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My Guilty Little Pleasure – Tiny Kits

 

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.

Mill Hill Bead and Cross Stitch Kits
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