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
March 26, 2015
This morning, I’d like to share a free hand embroidery pattern from a series of old designs that I’m cleaning up and altering a little bit so that they’re suitable for hand stitching on smaller projects.
This particular medallion features a cross shape, tipped with fleurs-de-lis, with stylized floral elements between the four arms.
March 25, 2015
Following up on last week’s excursion into embroidered stories and the Prestonpans Tapestry, here are a few embroidered stories that I hope you will enjoy exploring.
Great events in history, and especially great conflicts, have been retold with needle and thread since the Middle Ages. The Bayeux Tapestry is the first example of this.
The two great conflicts of the modern era – World War I and II – have been retold in stitches through a few well-known and lesser-well-known projects that should be well-known.
Don’t be misled into thinking the stories told here are meant to glorify war. On the contrary, they commemorate the spirit of the people whose lives were profoundly changed because of the horrors of war. Sandra Lawrence, on her web page devoted to the Overlord Embroidery, quotes Lord Dulverton, who commissioned the embroideries. He explains:
The Embroidery is a tribute to our Country and Countrymen over the part played in defeating a great evil that sprang upon the Western World. It is not, and was never intended to be, a tribute to war, but to our people in whom it brought out in adversity so much that is good, determination, ingenuity, fortitude and sacrifice.
As Time distances us from these massive conflicts that affected all of our ancestors (and hence, us) in one way or another, the stories below serve as a good reminder.
March 24, 2015
Have you ever tried to transfer an embroidery design onto dark or brightly colored fabrics and ended up dissatisfied with the results?
Pencil lines and dark ink don’t show up, chalk pencils rub off during the process of stitching, tacking stitches over tissue paper is time intensive and might not deliver the detail you want – all of these are problematic when trying to get a design from paper to darker colored ground fabrics.
A reader recently wrote in frustration, looking for a solution. She wrote:
I’ve tried every kind of chalk pencil out there, but the marks don’t last. I’ve tried white and yellow dressmaker’s carbon, but the fabric surface is too rough. They seem to work better on a smooth fabrics, not bumpy linen. I’ve tried tacking stitches like you recommend for tacking over tracing paper, but the detail isn’t fine enough. What can I use to draw lines on darker fabrics that won’t disappear and that are visible and fine enough for embroidery?
I’m opening the question up for all of you to chime in! Please, offer advice to Stacy!
And in the meantime, I’ll offer this suggestion for those facing a similar dilemma:
March 23, 2015
This September, Hand & Lock will be in the US, offering classes in tambour beading and in traditional monogramming in Williamsburg, Virginia, at the Williamsburg School of Needlework.
Today, I’ll tell you a little bit about Hand & Lock and their classes and then, courtesy of Hand & Lock, I’ll announce a very special give-away.
And I mean Very Special – once-in-a-life-time-special!
March 21, 2015
Good morning, and a happy Saturday all around!
For your weekend browsing, here are a few snips of needlework related goings-on, online. So, grab a cuppa, and let’s have a browse, shall we?
March 20, 2015
Once upon a time, when I was a kid (ok, back in the late 1900’s – like, 1999 – when I wasn’t really a kid), I came across The A-Z of Bullions on my sister’s bookshelf.
My next-oldest sister has always been My Hero when it comes to churning out arts, crafts, real cooking, and pretty much All Things Handmade. If she turns her hand to something that requires Making, she’s generally successful at it.
Heirloom sewing (this hand embroidered First Communion dress, for example) was one of her first loves. Long before I ever got into real embroidery, she was stitching bullion knots on her children’s clothes.
But then, that’s because she’s So Much Older than I am.
Chortle, chortle.
It’s no wonder, then, that, once upon a time back in 1999, I found the A-Z of Bullions on her bookshelf.
And given my growing infatuation with embroidery, it’s equally no wonder that I absconded with it.
This is the book that taught me how to work bullion knots easily and with confidence.
And it’s one of the many A-Z books that have been recently republished by Search Press, this one under the title of A-Z of Embroidered Motifs.
March 19, 2015
You know what the funniest thing is about setting a concrete stitching commitment, with a daily stitching goal attached to it?
You find yourself thinking about the project Every Single Day. Pre-commitment – before I set in concrete my goal to embroider one feather a day on the Secret Garden Hummingbirds – days and days would go by without the project ever entering my brain.
Sure, occasionally, I’d glimpse it, perched on a stand, covered, waiting for attention. But just as quickly as I saw it, out it went again, replaced by some other pressing task.
But now, I have feathers on the brain. I can’t escape them!
On the bright side, it is paying off. In fact, I’ve even put another feather in the bank, so I’m four feathers ahead on my stitching goal.
