If you’re launching into any embroidery projects this weekend, you might consider incorporating the chain stitch – or some variation thereof – into your current project.

Why? Lots of reasons! The basic chain stitch is easy, it’s versatile, it’s attractive, it works up quickly – and it has oh-so-many variations to it that you could never get bored with it!

There are times when I try to be an organized stitcher. I actually make an effort to keep everything in its place while I’m working.

There’s a reason for this, and it’s very simple: organization saves time. I can work much more efficiently, in a much better frame of mind, if my workspace is neat and if I know where things are.

But just as there are times when I purposely work to keep myself organized while an embroidery project is underway, there are also times when I don’t.

Right now, I am suffering from PPMD – Post Project Mess Disorder. And unlike my embroidery thread addiction that I spoke about yesterday – which I don’t intend to fight – this is something I need to face and fix right away.

I am, I think, addicted to embroidery threads.

There. I said it. The first step on the road to recovery is admitting there’s a problem. So I’ve admitted it.

But this raises a question: is this an addiction I really want to recover from? Not really. It’s not as if it’s harmful, after all.

But the truth is, I sometimes do the Silas Marner thing. You know him, don’t you? He was a miser. And he liked to count his gold.

And sometimes, I like to count my threads. I like to take stock of the threads I have, especially if I’m starting another project, and especially if the threads I plan to use are metal threads.

And when I take stock of my embroidery threads, sometimes, the most delightful thing happens!

Last week, I had the pleasure of reviewing one of Lorna Bateman’s pretty embroidered pincushion kits and running a give-away for the same kit.

Today I’ll announce the winner (some lucky duck out there!) and add a little more information that I missed in my first review!

If I could categorize embroidery books into types, I’d probably divide them up like this:

Embroidery techniques, embroidery projects, embroidery history (and culture), old embroidery books, embroidery patterns…

I’m sure if we all put our heads together, we could come up with a few more general categories that hand embroidery books usually fall into, but off the top of my head, those are the divisions that come to mind when sorting books.

And I was sorting books the other day, when I came upon an oldy but goody. It fits into pretty much all the categories listed above, in one way or another.

The book is Scandinavian Embroidery by Edith Nielsen, published in 1978.

Happy Monday!

For those who read Needle ‘n Thread via email, I apologize for the broken links that came in the newsletter on Saturday. If you go to Needlework News Snips here on Needle ‘n Thread, all the links work fine, but on Saturday, I messed something up in the email format and managed to break most of them.

Yes, after 8.5 years of blogging, I’m still making mistakes…

Anyway, in Saturday’s article, I mentioned that I’m writing for Craftsy now and then. Because I would never want another website to come between me and thee, I contracted for only one article once a month, but somehow, I bit off a three-article series for December, due tomorrow.

The series is on adding dimension and texture to hand embroidery. The series focuses on threads, other materials, and a small project. This is the small project: