I know I can’t be the only one in the world who has done this with an embroidery project!

I call it dead-ending.

Dead-ending is when you have a specific plan (or two) in mind for an embroidery project, you get the project underway, and then you realize it just isn’t going to happen. At least, not the way you planned it!

The backstory to this: A while ago, I mentioned this embroidered book cover design that I planned on stitching up on a prayer book cover for my niece’s First Communion. That was the first episode of transferring the design to fabric using my printer. After the printer successfully spat out the design on linen, I also printed the embroidery design on a very nice silk dupioni.

So far so good.

The next step: setting up the foundation fabric for the embroidered book cover.

Continuing with little historical stories about embroidery, I thought I’d end the week where we began it: with the embroidered handkerchief.

Remember the hand embroidered handkerchiefs we examined earlier this week, that feature embroidered figures?

I thought at first that they were both objects of the tourist trade. It turns out that one is, one isn’t. Panama Pamela is the tourist.

But the little Korean girls on the teeter totter are not. Instead, they’re proof that amazing things can be accomplished with a few embroidery stitches.

During the Victorian age and up into the first part of the 20th century, single initials, monograms or ciphers (there’s a difference between initials, monograms, and ciphers, explained here) embroidered onto personal linens served more than just a decorative purpose. And sometimes, they were so simple, small, and discreet that they weren’t necessarily even that decorative.

Imagine marking all the personal linens in your trousseau. (Um…ok, first imagine that you had to have a trousseau…).

Every hanky, every under garment…just so there’d be no mix up in your household laundry when your servants or your laundry service cleaned them.

Imagine that your husband or brother or father is going off to fight in WWI, and his personal linens all need to be marked. It’s not as if you can whip out the Sharpie, after all.

Or just imagine that you’re an industrious embroiderer who wants to embroider a neat little initial on a nice pile of hankies to to sell, to give as a gift, or whatever.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could impress the letter’s design onto many different linens, uniformly?

Enter, the iron-on transfer, first developed in the late 1800’s, and popular ever since for the easy transfer of embroidery patterns.

How happily handy!

Woooohooooo! This is me, in a good mood. Why? Not because it’s Tax Day. No, no! It’s better than that!

(Well, that wouldn’t be too difficult, would it?)

Yesterday, I reached a Milestone in the preparation of my Stitch Sampler Alphabet e-book that will launch on the world in the not-too-distant future.

I printed it for proofing. That’s practically Monumental. It means I’m almost there.

Stitch Sampler Alphabet is a hefty little instructional and project e-book, printing at about 120 pages. Lots of detailed stitch instructions! Lots of fun stitch combinations! Lots of color! Lots of samples!

And lots of work!

While it was printing, I was damp stretching this:

One of the best ways to get really comfortable with hand embroidery is to set about making a stitch sampler.

Sometimes, we get stuck with one impression that comes to mind with any given word. If I say “sampler,” for example, what comes to your mind? For me, it’s usually something that includes an alphabet and that’s worked in cross stitch. I know this is a limited view, but I suppose it’s because that’s what I grew up with in the 80’s, when my sisters and aunts were working samplers.

A stitch sampler doesn’t have to have a pattern, necessarily. It doesn’t have to be planned. It doesn’t have to include an alphabet. And it doesn’t have to be worked solely in cross stitch. A stitch sampler can be just that – a sampler of stitches.

Today, I’ll point you to some further reading and resources, with plenty of tips for creating your own stitch sampler.

Have you ever been charmed by embroidery?

Well, to start your Monday off, here are two pieces of embroidery that have charmed me. I find them delightful!

Both handkerchiefs below are hand embroidered with figures – a dancing lady, children playing. They’re colorful and fun, and they were undoubtedly embroidered for the tourist market.

Just because they are souvenirs, though, don’t write off the embroidery! Sure, at souvenir shops these days, you can still find embroidered hankies – machine embroidered, produced in bulk, lacking quality, and usually pretty devoid of personality.

But these hand embroidered hankies are just lovely, they’re packed with personality, and they can teach us a lot!

For your weekend stitching adventures, here’s a super-simple, really fun stitch with a whole lot of options for further experimentation.

The stitch is called tulip stitch – it’s a slipped, detached chain stitch, and while it can be worked singly, as a detached, lonely stitch, it also works up well into a line stitch.

Tulip stitch works well as an individual accent stitch, but it can also be worked in lines, in gentle curves, for seam treatments in crazy quilts, on lettering, in garden landscapes, as borders, and I’m sure you can come up with many more possibilities!

Ready?