Good morning and a happy weekend to you!

It promises to be a glorious, beautiful weekend here in Kansas. The first hint of spring! I’m going to stitch with my windows open today, even if I freeze in the process.

Just a quick note this morning to announce the winner of Salley Mavor’s new book, Felt Wee Folk: New Adventures, which I reviewed earlier this week, and to share some little snips of needlework news.

Ready?

How do you use up your leftover fabric “scraps”?

I absolutely never throw away any scrap of linen that’s at least 2″ square, because I know I can use it for something.

Mostly, I use scraps for the background fabrics you see here on Needle ‘n Thread for stitch instructions.

And lately, I’ve been stitching up a lot of instructions and stitch samples. Lots! Yesterday alone, I took 439 photos of about 18 different stitches and stitch combinations in progress and finished.

Before I set out on this particular glut of stitch photography, I was able to come up with a whole pile of scraps perfect for this use.

This is my whole process of setting up a photo session for embroidery stitches.

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!

Now and then, I like to post questions from readers, especially when the answer may open up some embroidery options for others, too.

Janet wrote a while ago, asking if floche can be used for long and short stitch shading:

I have the whole set of DMC floche and I’m not sure what kind of stitching to do with it. I want to embroider some flowers and practice long and short stitch needle shading, but can floche be used for that? I appreciate any help you can give me. Thanks!

Here’s my answer:

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!