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
February 2, 2015
You and I – we might be fanatical about hand embroidery, but we’re not so fanatical about it that we actually eat, drink, and sleep “embroidery.”
Weelllllll…. ok. We can sleep under embroidered sheets in embroidered PJs, with heads resting on embroidered pillow cases.
But it’s not as if we can eat and drink embroidery.
Or…..can we?
January 31, 2015
Today, I’m going to share a free hand embroidery pattern with you while waxing philosophical (actually, just babbling and pondering) about the names we give to visual works of art.
This is a little drawing I’ve been playing with for a while, with the intention of using it as a hand embroidery design.
The design was inspired by a floral repeat on a piece of antique fabric of a somewhat Jacobean flavor. I fiddled with it, sketched it, colored it, fudged it up, and then finally set it aside, thinking, “Some day, some day.”
And hopefully, some day, it will come about that I can work it into an embroidery piece. But in the mean time, I thought I’d share it with you!
January 30, 2015
If you’re doing any weekend embroidery, you might want to indulge in some Stitch Fun while you’re at it!
Today’s tutorial for a scalloped, beaded buttonhole edging (version 1) came about because a reader requested a tutorial. She was following directions on a kit, and the directions stated:
Work a loose buttonhole in the backstitches with beads for scallops.
There were no further instructions and no diagrams, so she was a little stumped. Looking at the photo she sent of the finished piece that came with the kit, today’s tutorial for beaded buttonhole edging is what I gather the designer meant.
This is a very simple scalloped beaded buttonhole edging. It can be used to add a little sparkle and zing to decorated edges on finished embroidery projects like needle books, pin cushions, ornaments, and the like.
January 29, 2015
When Hazel kindly sent me the Late Harvest embroidery kit I showed you the other day, she included a copy of Crewel Intentions.
And since I already have a copy of Crewel Intentions, this one is perfect for giving away to you, right? Well, wrong! I actually ended up doing something else with it… so instead, I’m giving away yet another copy. Still, the long and short of it is this:
Today, I’m giving away a copy of Crewel Intentions to some lucky stitcher out there!
January 28, 2015
When I make mistakes with needlework or embroidery projects – you know, the kind of mistakes I should have known better and avoided? – I call them Misadventures.
They’re often the result of exploring or experimenting with some technique, some process that has to do with embroidery (because I live, eat, breathe and drink embroidery and it’s the only thing I ever do in my life. Oh wait. No, I do other things, and I have Misadventures in those pursuits, too).
As I explore and experiment, it’s not unusual for something to go amuck.
Maybe this doesn’t ever happen to you. Perhaps you are the one of those amazing people that I look at, with Eyes Wide in Wonder, thinking, She always gets it right. When I grow up, I want to be like her!
But in the meantime, I keep Misadventuring away!
Here is my first laundering misadventure with the piña cloth embroidery pieces that I recently acquired.
When I set out, I even had instructions, so what could possibly go wrong?
January 27, 2015
Today, we’re going to take a close-up look at one of Hazel Blomkamp’s embroidery kits from her latest book, Crewel Intentions, which I reviewed last year.
The book, if you remember from reading the review, is full of magnificent embroidery projects that incorporate all kinds of stitching techniques, thread types, beads, and other embellishments into modern interpretations of somewhat Jacobean-esque embroidery designs. It’s a fantastic book, full of fun, challenging embroidery projects!
Hazel sells kits for the projects in her books through her website, Hazel Blomkamp Fine Needlework. I’ve always wanted to buy one of her kits, to review it for you and experience working through one of her projects, but I’ve put it off and off again, due to time constraints.
Well, right around this past Christmas, what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a package whose contents to me were unclear? I sprang to the mailbox, my heart gave a flutter, and I opened the package and started to stutter!
It’s…it’s….it’s a kit! I cried.
(And that’s where my ability to rhyme ceases.)
And not just any kit, but Hazel kindly sent me her Late Harvest embroidery kit, replete with fabric, threads, beads, needles, and necessary notions.
January 26, 2015
It all started on a gloomy winter afternoon, not long after lunch. I was feeling restless. Deep down, I was yearning for an Adventure.
But like a good girl, I betook myself to my studio to work.
Now, I know most people wouldn’t consider embroidering while listening to good music or an audiobook work, and I don’t, really, either. But it is what I do for a living, and there are days when it seems a little less than adventurous.
With the winter sky forcing its grey light through the windows, I sat silently in the half-gloom.
An Adventure! said I to me. You need an Adventure!
Suddenly, the sun broke through the clouds. It’s rays slanted across my work table. With an angel choir swelling into sweet song in the distance, the light glinted on the needles protruding from my Ubiquitous Red Tomato pincushion.
And next to the tomato was a pair of….
scissors!
