About

Mary Corbet

writer and founder

 

I learned to embroider when I was a kid, when everyone was really into cross stitch (remember the '80s?). Eventually, I migrated to surface embroidery, teaching myself with whatever I could get my hands on...read more

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Free Hand Embroidery Pattern: Rococo Bud

 

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I have The Worst Time Ever trying to name hand embroidery designs.

It’s a great source of wonderment to me, how designers can repeatedly come up with apt, catchy, or elegant names for embroidery projects, kits, and designs! Or how thread manufacturers can come up with diverse color names that work!

When I try to come up with clever and appropriate names for designs or projects, words like thingy, stuff, and whatchamacallit come to mind.

Once upon a time, I thought about resorting to a numbering system. Project 1. Project 2. Project 214a. But that would be even worse, wouldn’t it?

So I really put my thinking cap on for this design, and I named it Rococo Bud.

It’s not necessarily a clever name. But it beats Acanthus-ish Thingamabob.

And if you say it ten times fast, it ends up twisting into nonsense words, like ropocobut, which makes it doubly entertaining.

Free Hand Embroidery Pattern: Rococo Bud
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Stitch Fun! Buttonholed Bullion Buttonhole Wheels

 

It’s been a while since I’ve written a Stitch Fun tutorial! I’ve been aching to write one, though, for quite a while!

This particular combination of stitches results in a rather frivolous and fun spoked wheel. It would be perfect for adding to dimensional embroidery projects, Brazilian embroidery, highly textured embroidery, free style embroidery, and so forth.

Before we begin, if you’re not familiar with buttonhole wheels and bullion knots, you might take some time to watch the buttonhole wheel video tutorial and the bullion knot video tutorial.

Stitch Play: Buttonholed Bullion Buttonhole Wheels
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Leaf Clusters & the Order of Stitching

 

Last time we visited the Secret Garden project, I was reveling in Yellow. I still haven’t gotten over the excitement of the yellow – I want to outline every element on the project in yellow now!

But I’ll refrain…

Today, let’s look at some leaf clusters. There are quite a few clusters of leaves on the Secret Garden project. Some could certainly be translated into flowers. The three-leaf clusters, for example, could be worked as some kind of stylized flower, in colors other than green.

But, as I explained earlier, my color vision for this particular project is predominantly lush and vibrant green – lots of green. Very leafy and springy green. And so my clusters are all going to be leaves.

Secret Garden Project: Order of Stitching
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Silk Embroidered Blue Bird & Lessons Learned

 

Last week, I reviewed the book BiblioCraft, wherein you’ll find a project I designed, inspired by ornamental penmanship of the 19th century.

The project in the book is worked on a linen glass towel (like the one I used for this monogrammed towel). The one in the book was my second version of the project, though.

The first version of the project was worked in various types of silk thread, and it ended up looking like this:

Silk Embroidery Inspired by Ornamental Penmanship
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BiblioCraft: Combining Two Worthwhile Concepts in One Book

 

Arts & Crafts. Libraries.

I love arts & crafts. I value the things made by artists and craftsmen. And I value the gift of being able to make things.

I love libraries. And I love the riches within libraries. Books are as much a part of my life as embroidery is. If people only knew the Treasure that is The Library! Whole worlds of wonder reside in the library system. It’s just a matter of knowing how to tap The Library as an inexhaustible source of inspiration for artisans and crafters.

So… when rare books librarian and knitter-stitcher-bibliophile Jessica Pigza asked me to participate in a book she was writing that combines the Library with Arts & Crafts, how could I say no?

The result of that happy combination: BiblioCraft, by Jessica Pigza. It’s a completely different twist on arts & crafts and inspiration.

BiblioCraft by Jessica Pigza
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The Thread Color I Didn’t Think Of

 

I have a hard time letting go of something that’s nagging me on an embroidery project. If it’s nagging me, I want to tackle it and correct it right away; otherwise, it hovers like my own personal little grey cloud, detracting from the rest of the embroidery.

And that’s what was happening with the outer outlines on the leaves on the Secret Garden Project. They were bugging me. I had determined to leave them until later.

But there they were, hovering. Nagging. Whispering. Constantly distracting me.

After eight failed attempts at settling on a color and a stitch for the outer leaf outlines, in steps an email from Margaret Vant Erve (if you’re not familiar with her embroidered landscapes, you should be!).

She suggested one of two options: a dark maroon or a mustard yellow. I had already tried a maroonish color, but yellow – yellow never occurred to me at all!

Secret Garden Embroidery: Leaf Outlines
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