If you’ve been hanging around here on Needle ‘n Thread for a few months, you might remember that, shortly after Christmas, I mentioned that Benton & Johnson in the UK was having a sale on their website, particularly on their goldwork embroidery kits (which are still marked down, by the way).

I purchased a few of them at the time so I could review them for you. Gosh, I just love using you as an excuse to feed my embroidery habit!

Just in case you’re looking for goldwork kits suitable for beginners and beyond, it’s nice to know what you’ll get when you order an embroidery kit. The descriptions on the Benton & Johnson website are not very thorough, so I was curious to see what their kits are like.

So, here it goes – what you can expect in a goldwork kit ordered from Benton & Johnson…

Yesterday, I reviewed Salley Mavor’s new book, Felt Wee Folk: New Adventures, and you met my new stitching companion, who still doesn’t have a name.

For those of you who receive the Needle ‘n Thread daily newsletter in your inbox, you might have missed the give-away. I’m also giving away a copy of the book, courtesy of C & T Publishing. If you did miss that, you’ll find the details on yesterday’s book review, and you still have plenty of time to join in!

Sorry about that – I added the give-away later in the morning, after the newsletter had already flown the coop!

Throughout the day yesterday, I received a slew of email about the curls on the doll, many from folks working on stumpwork figures: how did I work them, are there instructions in the book, are they attached to the head first, is there a pattern for that bonnet, and so forth.

So today, before we get too far away from the subject, I’ll explain how I added curls to my doll’s head, so that those of you immersed in creating stumpwork figures can play with the techniques.

Are you familiar with the Salley Mavor’s wee felt folk?

Quite a while ago, I fell in love with Salley’s artwork, through her book illustrations. (I reviewed her book, Pocketful of Posies, here). On exploring her artwork, I discovered her website and blog, and her book Felt Wee Folk, reviewed here.

Salley’s approach to her doll making and the creation of her little scenes struck me as very adaptable for embroiderers who are particularly interested in dimensional embroidery and stumpwork – especially stumpwork figures.

Ever since my first encounter with Salley’s work, I’ve longed to dabble with doll making.

I never gave into the longing. After all, I’m an embroiderer, not a doll-maker, right?

But earlier this year, my sister and I got into a few discussions on doll making and we found ourselves exploring all kinds of options for making little dolls. When Salley contacted me about her upcoming new book, Felt Wee Folk: New Adventures, and asked if I’d like to review it and participate in a “blog tour” of book reviews for it, I thought it was serendipitous. I said, You Bet!

It seems like the best excuse in the world to throw off my inhibitions about making dolls!

So, today, I’m going to review Salley’s new book for you, and then I’m going to introduce you to my new stitching companion and offer you a chance to win your own copy of the book!

Happy Saturday!

This morning, a free pattern to add to the collection of hand embroidery patterns here on Needle ‘n Thread! This one is a highly formal, stylized thistle.

I love thistles in hand embroidery – there are so many ways they can be embroidered! I’ve seen puffy, hairy thistles, worked in turkey work; I’ve seen needle painted thistles in long and short stitch; I’ve seen thistles worked with very long chain stitches, like the one in Breath of Spring; thistles worked with pistil stitch, and thistles worked with very effectively with plain old straight stitches. Lots of options!

A little news first, after hearing from some readers: I updated information on yesterday’s article regarding Alba Maxima linen for hand embroidery, adding some more resources and a good substitute if you can’t find the bright white Alba Maxima. You can always try “Old White” linen, which is the same linen, only not as bright white. It’s just as nice!

And now, let’s talk about some new old embroidery books!

The A-Z Series of Needlework Books

When Country Bumpkin first began publishing the A-Z Series of needlework books, I was in Hog Heaven!

The A-Z Series is a fantastic series of instructional books for different needlework techniques, featuring step-by-step photo instructions in beautiful books that are perfect for reference.

Last year, the rights to publish the A-Z Series were acquired by Search Press.

This is Extremely Good News for needleworkers all around the world, for a number of reasons.

Search Press is well-known for their excellent instructional books in all kinds arts and crafts – from embroidery to painting and drawing, paper crafts, knitting, cake decorating – you name it! They’re a strong, quality publishing company, and their acquisition of the rights bodes well for the future availability of the series, as well as for the continuation of it.

Some minor things have changed with the new reprints of the books. So let’s look at the alterations, talk about what’s coming up, and compare two series of instructional needlework books.

Well, I’ve not gotten very far on the Redwork Runner hem – but I’ve started withdrawing some threads.

Withdrawing threads for a little drawn thread hem stitch around the whole hem of the runner takes a lot of time! It’s fiddly work, and admittedly, it’s not the most exciting part of any embroidery project. Besides, it always makes me a little nervous, to start cutting and pulling out threads.

If you haven’t seen it yet, you can take a look at the finished embroidery on my Hungarian Redwork Runner here. It’s a lot of embroidery! Wouldn’t it be just a crying shame to cut the wrong threads in the hem work?

I’ll show you how I go about preparing for this type of simple hem – it’s really a fool-proof method, so there’s not too much to be worried about. The key is taking your time and looking two, three, four, or ten times before you snip the first threads.