April 29, 2014
Organizing Silk Threads
Last month, I spent a day playing with silk threads. These silk threads, as a matter of fact.
Last week, I finished up some thread organization with the very same silk threads, which are from The Silk Mill.
April 28, 2014
Secret Garden Embroidery: The Green is Finished!
Ever since Friday afternoon, I’ve had a song stuck in my head. It goes something like this, to the tune of “On the Road Again”:
The Green is Done. I’m so happy that the Green is Done. It took forever to stitch all that Green. But now it’s over and the Green is Done…
It doesn’t really work rhythmically with the song, except in my own tuneless, rhythm-less way of singing.
Are you glad this isn’t an audio-blog? (Trust me, you’re glad…)
April 26, 2014
Ackermann’s Repository & Embroidery Patterns
From 1809-1829, during the Regency era, Rudolph Ackerman published a periodical called the Repository of Arts, Literature, Commerce, Manufactures, Fashions, and Politics, or, for short (thankfully!) Ackermann’s Repository.
Ackermann’s Repository can serve as a nice source of free hand embroidery designs, and today, I’ll show you how to access the designs easily.
So grab a cup of coffee and join me for a browse through a fascinating piece of history!
April 25, 2014
All. Most. There.
April 24, 2014
Looking for Richelieu / Cutwork Embroidery Patterns?
I often get questions about sources for cutwork embroidery patterns.
Richelieu (also called by the more generic name of “cutwork”) is an exquisite type of (usually whitework) embroidery that involves outlining areas in a design and building little “bridges” of fabric and woven bars, so that pieces of the linen can be cut away, creating a visual contrast between the white linen and the cut away parts of the design. It also often involves some surface ornamentation in whitework embroidery.
There are several publications available that are dedicated to cutwork embroidery, all of them coming from one area of Europe or another.
Today, I’ll show you one publication devoted entirely to cutwork that I really like, and tell you why I like it and where you can get it.
April 23, 2014
Long & Short Stitch Shading – Changing the Order of Shades
I really wanted to have the leaves on the Secret Garden project completely finished by today.
In my head, I set a deadline for yesterday evening. But for some reason, I’m always overly optimistic when I set stitching deadlines.
If I add a calendar year to every stitching deadline I set, I’d be more likely to hit the mark!
In any case, the leaves are moving along, and today, I want to show you my favorite leaves, and talk about a bit about the order of shading with long & short stitch.
April 22, 2014
Needlelace: Designs & Techniques, Classic & Contemporary – Book Review
It’s always a good sign when twenty or more years can pass, and a needlework technique and instruction book is still in demand and relevant.
Needlelace: Designs and Techniques, Classic and Contemporary by Catherine Barley is just such a book. It was first published in 1993, and while you can still find copies of the book available through used book sources for a pretty penny, you can now buy a reprint of the book, new, directly from the author.
If you are interested in needlelace – or in its application to stumpwork embroidery projects, to historical needlework projects (think detached stitches in 17th century embroidery), to contemporary whitework – Catherine’s book should be in your reference library.
