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

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

Hand Embroidery Patterns

November 6, 2015

Tulip Monograms – Y & Z

Finally, the last of the Tulip Monogram alphabet for hand embroidery – the Y and the Z!

Admittedly, they aren’t the most frequently used initials in the alphabet, but we wouldn’t want to leave them out, would we?

Monograms for Hand Embroidery - Tulips - Y and Z

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.

Hand Embroidery Patterns

November 2, 2015

Folky Flakes for Holiday Stitching

Today, let’s delve into the world of counted cross stitch, with a bit of a twist!

I’ve been recently fiddling with some folky holiday-related designs for counted work. As is pretty much always the case when I start messing with pattern development, what was originally three designs morphed into many more variations, which I’ll be sharing with you here as I finish the samples.

There’s just Something about working with repeat patterns. In the design stage, it’s fun. There are so many possibilities for developing more complex and less complex patterns, starting from just a few basic design elements.

Folky Snowflake Corner for Counted Cross Stitch

Uncategorized

October 29, 2015

Discover Floche! It’s Gorgeous – Try It!

For those of you who have been hanging out with me on Needle ‘n Thread for a while, floche is probably not a new thread to you. You may not have tried it yet (some day, I hope to convince you!), but you’ve heard about, because I use it a lot.

I love floche! I love it more than I love chocolate. If I had to see one or the other disappear from my life, I wouldn’t cry over losing chocolate. But I would have a melt down over losing floche.

(I almost said I love it more than I love tea. But one must draw the line somewhere, when it comes to a thread addiction… life without tea wouldn’t be life at all.)

For those of you who are relatively new to Needle ‘n Thread or haven’t experienced floche before, you might appreciate more of an introduction to floche.

To that end, today I’m going to direct you to the dope, as it were, on this addictive, beautiful embroidery thread…

Uncategorized

October 27, 2015

Woven Fillings Sampler & a Pumpkin Basket

Last week, when I rounded up some autumn stitching ideas for you, I sneaked you a peek at a little embroidered basket of pumpkins.

In fact, it was this basket of pumpkins:

Connect with Mary

How-To
Videos

Embroidery Tips & Techniques

Connect with Mary

Stumpwork Embroidery Essentials – Online Class for Beginners & Beyond

Yuki Sugashima on The Hand-Stitched Flower Garden

Tulip Monograms – Y & Z

Cross Stitch & Counted Work on Plain Weave Fabric

Folky Flakes for Holiday Stitching

Discover Floche! It’s Gorgeous – Try It!

Woven Fillings Sampler & a Pumpkin Basket

Connect with Mary

How-To Videos

Embroidery Tips & Techniques

Connect with Mary

How-To
Videos