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.

Last week, I began offering a new series of monograms for hand embroidery – a delicate alphabet with a few simply flower sprays adorning it.

Today, I’ll share the letters D, E, and F with you, along with some stitching ideas for beginners (and beyond).

If you have some ideas you’d like to share for stitching the letters, by all means, leave a comment below! It’s always nice to hear suggestions from everyone, when it comes to stitching ideas – the more ideas, the better!

Since I haven’t posted anything on the Secret Garden embroidery project lately (I haven’t been home for the last couple weeks – did you miss me?), today I want to share with you someone else’s Secret Garden project.

My reason for honing in on Lynette’s version of the Secret Garden Hummingbirds will be obvious once you see it!

The long & short stitch is one of those embroidery stitches that is worth learning, and that’s why I published a series of step-by-step lessons on a Long & Short Stitch Sampler several years ago.

The purpose of the Long & Short Stitch Sampler is to take the beginner through progressively more difficult aspects of shading using long & short stitch.

Most of the embroiderers from the Needle ‘n Thread community featured today said they started out with the Long & Short Stitch Sampler, and then worked their way forward to other types of stitching involving long & short stitch, most specifically needle painting (or creating realistic looking embroidery using long & short stitch shading and other stitches).

The other day, I posted the first three letters of the Delicate Spray monogram alphabet that I’m adding to the hand embroidery patterns here on Needle ‘n Thread.

One of the aspects that I really like about these scrolly-scripty type letters is that they are easy to combine into true monograms – groups of letters – rather than just using them as decorative initials.

Today, let’s look at some ways that individual decorative letters can be combined into groups of letters to form a monogram.

The Crewel Rooster is one of the step-by-step embroidery projects available on Needle ‘n Thread.

He was an experiment in combining various types of wool threads and various stitches, using whatever happened to be available, wool-wise, in my stash.

Since I’ve had lots of questions about the Crewel Rooster since he was born, I wasn’t surprised to receive a few contributions from readers in which he was featured.

The surprising thing is that all the rooster contributions arrived in my email on the same day, within a couple hours of each other! I’ve since proclaimed a National Rooster Day.

Each rooster below represents a completely different approach to the same embroidery design, so I think it’ll be fun to see them all on one page, demonstrating that an embroidery design can always be personalized with your own thread and stitch choices.

If you’re traveling this summer and you happen to make it to London – or, more accurately, to Oxford – after the first of August, and if you’re a 17th century embroidery fan, you’ll not want to miss The Eye of the Needle exhibit at the Ashmolean!