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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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  • How-To
    Videos

    Over 75 Embroidery Stitch Videos to Help You Learn

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    A Collection of Instructional Articles

 
Hand Embroidery Patterns

November 16, 2015

Snowflake 2: Free Pattern for your Winter Decor

 

Amazon Books

We chatted not too long ago about various ways to work cross stitch on plain weave fabric, and I offered you this snowflake corner design for some holiday stitching.

Well, along the same longs, here’s another flake. I figure Monday morning is as good a morning to share it with you!

You’ll find the free PDF printable for this particular snowflake chart at the end of the article. But you know me – I’m going to babble a bit first, before I give it to you…

Snowflake #2 cross stitch chart
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Uncategorized

November 10, 2015

Stumpwork Embroidery Essentials – Online Class for Beginners & Beyond

 

Well, now.

I have a little secret.

I’ve been indulging in a very agreeable diversion the last couple days.

Yep, I’ve been totally glued to the screen, watching videos in the middle of the day.

No, no. I haven’t been torturing myself with a Netflix marathon. It’s much better than that!

Craftsy has a launched yet another excellent hand embroidery class for those who want to extend their embroidery skills in an affordable, easy, self-paced way. Remember the goldwork class I reviewed a while back? It’s the same concept!

Only this new one is a stumpwork class – Stumpwork: Raised Embroidery Essentials, taught by Celeste Chalasani.

Today, I’m going to review it for you. I’ll tell you what’s in it, who it’s for, what you can learn from it, and the general pros and cons. To top it all off, if you want to take the class, I’ve got an early (and deep) discount for you at the end of the review.

Stumpwork Embroidery Essentials - Online Class
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Hand Embroidery Books

November 9, 2015

Yuki Sugashima on The Hand-Stitched Flower Garden

 

Yuki Sugashima is an embroiderer from Japan, who writes a beautiful blog Y*Handmade (previously, The Barefoot Shepherdess).

I’ve been reading Yuki’s blog for a long time, since it was Barefoot Shepherdess. Her photos are always gorgeous! And her embroidery is always delicate, clean, neat, and simple – it’s easy on the eyes. She has a lovely style.

Several years ago, Yuki wrote a couple guest posts here on Needle ‘n Thread about dyeing threads. You can find those articles here:

On Natural Dyeing, Part 1
On Natural Dyeing, Part 2

The Big News is Yuki’s new embroidery book, The Hand-Stitched Flower Garden. It’s been recently published and made available in the US and the UK, and it is proving very popular.

I asked Yuki to write about the book for you, so you can hear a little bit about her work and about the book itself. So, here you go – a little bit about Yuki and some photos from her new book. (You can click on the photos to enlarge them.)

Yuki Sugashima The Hand-Stitched Flower Garden
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Hand Embroidery Patterns

November 5, 2015

Cross Stitch & Counted Work on Plain Weave Fabric

 

On Monday, I shared with you a pattern for cross-stitched snowflakes of a folky sort, that can be used to embellish table linens, ornaments, and whatnot for the holiday season.

In that article, we chatted about three ways that you can work cross stitch – or any counted technique, really – on plain weave fabric, but I didn’t clarify the third way you could do it, because I hadn’t finished my little stitchy projects to test it out.

But now I’ve finished them, so here we go!

All three methods involve some sort of something that supplies a grid for the plain weave fabric. Remember, plain weave fabric is any fabric that isn’t an even-weave fabric like the kind you’d normally use for counted work. There’s no grid on plain weave fabric, so you have to supply a grid, if you want decent looking cross stitches.

Cross Stitching on Plain Weave Fabric
Continue reading “Cross Stitch & Counted Work on Plain Weave Fabric”