Today, a little tutorial for embroidery on gingham, or chicken scratch.

Chicken scratch is suited to any level of embroiderer, but, due to its simple nature and pleasing results, it’s an especially nice technique for beginners and even for children.

You can make up your own patterns for gingham embroidery, or you can look around online for pattern sources or inspiration from vintage aprons, household linens, and so forth. You’ll find two patterns here on Needle ‘n Thread for chicken scratch: Floral Corner #1 and Floral Corner #2, both of which can be used as corner designs, or can be easily adapted for straight edges.

As promised in yesterday’s article on chicken scratch (which garnered a lot of discussion!), here’s the second gingham lace or chicken scratch pattern for a little corner design.

It’s always nice to take a break and see what other folks have been up to with their needle and thread, so today, let’s look at a reader’s embroidery project!

Particularly apt for the day, this is a piece of silk & metal thread ecclesiastical embroidery that Anne Gomes worked up for her church to use as part of a Lenten altar frontal.

Anne is proficient in Japanese embroidery – she’s the gal who worked up this video of twisting Japanese silks for us, demonstrating how to twist 4 strands of silk into one twisted thread. Using similar twisting techniques, she combined silk and silver threads for the filling stitches on this piece.

Besides Anne’s obvious skill with the needlework, what I really love about this piece is the combination of silver and white against the black background. The contrast is striking, and so much more preferable for this type of work (in my opinion) than gold on a black background.

In many examples today of ecclesiastical embroidery, gold on black tends to look a bit – well, chintzy. But I know this depends entirely on the types of threads used and the choice of ground fabric. I suppose I’ve seen too many examples of bright gold lurex thread on black polyester…

Following up on last weekend’s gingham lace (or chicken scratch) embroidery pattern that I posted for you, I’ve been having an ongoing discussion on the email sidelines about the pattern and the recent examples of gingham embroidery that I’ve been sharing here and on my Needle ‘n Thread Facebook page.

I’ve been working on the two larger, single leaves that hang above the hummingbirds on the Secret Garden embroidery project. It seems as if I’ve been working on those two leaves, in fact, forever!

In fact, I only worked on them in one late afternoon, up to a point where a little mishap stalled me in my tracks.

These are the leaves:

With Easter coming up, and with some vague sensation of Spring flitting in and out, teasingly, I have lilies on my mind. And so I thought I’d pass on a free hand hand embroidery pattern featuring the lily.

This is my variation of a design from a very old folio of ecclesiastical embroidery drawings that I was able to purchase last year from a European rare books source. I’ll tell you more about the folio later – it’s an amazing collection of designs, all full-sized, from the first decade of the 1900’s.

My variation of the lily design can definitely be used for secular embroidery. I picture it as a goldwork piece with a touch of silk here and there, but that’s just me.

Usually, when I take a piece of embroidery in to be framed, I eagerly anticipate the outcome, generally confident that I’m going to like the end results. For the past ten years, I’ve worked with an excellent framer, whose advice and ideas I’ve come to trust thoroughly.

I didn’t feel too confident when I took the Mission Rose in to be framed. I came home thinking I had made the wrong decision on the frame. And, sad to say, my regular framer moved on to greener pastures…and his replacement seemed a little green.

After dropping the Mission Rose off, I spent a few days second-guessing, and then I put the whole thing out of my mind. I didn’t even think about it again until the phone call came, saying it was ready. And even then, I waited a few days before going to pick it up – which pretty much says everything!