About

Mary Corbet

writer and founder

 

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

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Embroidering the Last Secret Garden Flowers…

 

Amazon Books

Ever since returning from a little road trip almost two weeks ago, I’ve been in a bit of a slump, and my embroidery on the Secret Garden project is suffering for it.

A Slump? you say. Yes. A Slump.

Well, it’s a strange slump – but I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s ever experienced a slump like this. It’s like facing the kitchen after a huge Thanksgiving dinner for forty people. You look at the dishes heaped hither and yon, the pots, the pans – there’s a lot to do, and unless you work out some organized process, it’s going to take a lot of time to clean up the mess! Flitting from one little dish to another, from one section of the kitchen to another, isn’t really going to help things.

Sometimes, it’s just hard to know where to start.

Sometimes, the best option is burying your head in a pillow and waiting to see if elves really do exist.

But when it comes to embroidery – or to anything creative – sometimes, the best thing to do is to step away from a project for a little bit. Sometimes, it’s just helpful to take a break and tackle other things that need to be tackled.

Secret Garden Embroidery - the Flowers
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Little Flowers in Silk & Organza Ribbon – Book Review

 

Oh my goodness. The words that come to mind! Lavish, Lovely, Luscious – Di van Niekerk and Marina Zherdeva’s new silk ribbon embroidery book, Little Flowers in Silk & Organza Ribbon is all of the above!

For silk ribbon embroidery enthusiasts, I’m pretty certain all of Di’s books are a must for your bookshelves. But silk ribbon embroidery – and the techniques found in this book that I’m reviewing today – goes beyond just the SRE enthusiast.

If you are a crazy quilter, if you love stumpwork and three-dimensional embroidery techniques, if you are a flower enthusiast, if you just like pretty things – this book will draw you in and teach you much!

Little Flowers in Silk & Organza Ribbon - Di van Niekerk
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Monograms for Hand Embroidery: Delicate Spray J, K, L

 

Well, this is a surprise. I hope it isn’t too unpleasant, though. I really wasn’t planning on starting the week with more monograms patterns, but the article I was preparing just for you fell apart this morning while I was proofing.

I spent most of the weekend researching a topic that came up in an email conversation, reading up on it, finding resources and information about it. It’s one of those enthralling, obscure embroidery topics, and I was thoroughly enjoying putting together an article about it.

But when it came time to hit that publish button this morning, I just couldn’t hit the button. It needs More Work. More Research. More Information. It’s a neat subject – something related to whitework – and I’ll share it with you when I can round out the information a little bit.

And so, I found myself sitting here at the computer, later than usual on a Monday morning, scratching my head… Monograms to the rescue!

Monogram for Hand Embroidery: J
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Saving Embroidery from Color Run

 

Today’s article has a two-fold purpose: it’s part of the series of reader’s embroidery stitched under the influence of Needle ‘n Thread, but better yet, it demonstrates a creative way of overcoming the Most Disappointing, Horrific Experience of Color Run from embroidery threads that are not color fast.

Have you ever embroidered something with threads that you thought were colorfast, only to have them inexplicably bleed their dye onto the ground fabric come washing or rinsing time? It can be a gut-wrenching experience!

You’ve put hours – possibly weeks or months – of work into a project and you come to the point where you want to wash it or rinse it. You do so, still confident and happy, glowing in the sunshine and satisfaction of your stitching accomplishment.

You remove the piece from the water, and

…and…

and

…there it is. DYE. Oozing all over the ground fabric. Blurring the lines of your beautiful embroidery. Seeping out of the threads and spreading a halo of destruction around your stitchery. Oh, woe is you!

And woe is me, too! It’s the hardest situation to advise people on, because there aren’t too many solutions that absolutely work, or that work in every situation, to clean up the mess.

And that brings us to Diana’s crazy quilt…

Embroidered Monograms - Color Run from Embroidery Floss
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Confessions of an Embroidery Optimist – or Re-Thinking Embroidery Projects

 

Today I’m going to make a confession. I’m going to tell you something deep, dark, and secret about myself – something that many of us probably have in common, but we just don’t like to talk about it.

So, this is between you and me. Don’t spread it around. We’ll just keep it between us, ok?

When it comes to embroidery, I am an over-optimist – and my optimism gets me into trouble. I am an optimist about time; I am an optimist about workload; I am an optimist about perseverance; I am an optimist about capabilities.

And so, with my usual optimism, I often take on more than I can reasonably accomplish in a given amount of time, or I make plans that take me much longer to deliver on.

Secret Garden Embroidery Project
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Very Fine Floche for Whitework Embroidery

 

You know how it is. Once you get a bug in your head for a certain embroidery thread, you can’t really let it rest until you find it and try it.

Recently, we chatted a bit about the old whitework threads that can be found today, used, from various sources – estate sales, grandma’s attic, and so forth. Often (but not always), these threads are not really usable. They’ve been exposed to bad conditions or faulty storage for too long, and thread rot has set in.

If the threads are just dirty, it’s one thing – they can be cleaned. But if they are weakened due to rot, that’s a different question.

So, questing about for new extra fine whitework threads, I took the plunge and bought some threads from Marie Suarez in France.

Very Fine Floche for Whitework Embroidery
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