Starting and Traveling. Are we talking about cars here, or embroidery?

My knowledge of cars being somewhat limited (does it start? do I like the color? this is where the gas goes…), I promise we’re talking about hand embroidery.

And not only are we talking about hand embroidery, but we’re talking about ways to make hand embroidery more efficient.

We all know that handwork is not the most time efficient way of decorating fabric. In the past hundred plus years, we’ve developed machines that can adorn fabric a whole lot faster than the hand-wielded needle. Yet there are some things we can do to make our hand embroidery more time efficient.

Today, we’ll talk about two ways that will clip a little bit of time and trouble off your stitching sessions: starting threads and traveling threads.

If you’ve been hanging out with me for a while on Needle ‘n Thread, you might recall that last August, I ran a give-away for some really fun over-dyed embroidery threads from LES Designs.

Recently, Lorraine overhauled her embroidery thread business, renamed it to Colour Complements, and established a bright and beautiful new website, which has a blog attached, where you can keep up with her thready news.

After selecting colors and threads to get started with, I was super eager to get into stitching on the Secret Garden project.

You might think that I’d start with the hummingbirds, since they’re in the middle of the project, and they’re the focus of the project. After all, a jeweler starts with the stone before creating the setting, right?

Well, call it backwards, but I’m starting with the setting, and specifically with the vines, because they are the continuous force in the design. They go everywhere. They hold it all together.

Besides, I’m still ruminating on those hummingbirds. I haven’t conquered them yet in my mind, and working on the rest of the project will give them time to work themselves out in my head.

Last week, I reviewed a beautiful and instructive little book on stumpwork embroidery, called Stumpwork Flowers.

This week, continuing with stumpwork books, I want to show you Jane Nicholas’s latest book, called Stumpwork Butterflies & Moths. It’s just out, and, if you love stumpwork, butterflies, insects in general – well, it’s a corker!

After comparing several different types of cotton embroidery threads to use in the Secret Garden Hummingbirds embroidery project, I finally came to a painful conclusion.