Hedebo embroidery is a type of whitework originating in Denmark, perhaps as early as the 15th century (according to Flora Klickmann in The Cult of the Needle).

Hedebo is unique style of whitework, in that it involves seven distinct types of stitched elements in its composition, each type being added to the general make up of Hedebo over time as Hedebo developed and evolved. What began as stylized, rather stiff geometric drawn thread embroidery eventually evolved in the early 1800’s to a freer type of openwork ornamented with satin stitch, cutwork, and needle lace.

Today, we associate Hedebo mostly with cutwork and needlelace, as these make up a recognizable part of most Hedebo embroidery.

Guida al Ricamo Hedebo, or Guide to Hedebo Embroidery, by Laura Marzorati and Stefania Bressan, is an excellent beginner’s guide to the basics (and beyond!) of Hedebo. Here’s a closer look at the book.

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.

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…)

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!

Two. More. Leaves.

These two leaves:

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.

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.