Today, courtesy of Hedgehog Handworks, I’m giving away one copy of the out-of-print, highly coveted book on 17th century English embroidery, ‘Twixt Art and Nature: English Embroidery from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1580-1700.

Anyone up for a trip to London? If you’ve got one in your plans this year – or if you live in the relative vicinity – you might take the opportunity to catch the exhibit For Worship & Glory at the Royal School of Needlework at Hampton Court.

(Update, 2021: the exhibition was in 2013, so there are no longer working links to it in this article.)

This year from May through December, the RSN is exhibiting examples of ecclesiastical embroidery from their collections, and the star of the show? The twelve Litany of Loreto embroideries that are rarely all seen together on exhibition.

I do so want to go!

Photos below courtesy of the Royal School of Needlework and used with permission.

Here are a few more patterns for the fan flower alphabet for hand embroidered monograms (or decorative initials) that I began posting a few years ago. I’m finally tying up this loose end and getting the whole alphabet in place.

And it’s about time, too. The last letter I posted was O, and I don’t even like to think about how long ago that was!

So here are letters P through W, all in one place, with individual PDFs below for each letter.

Last time we looked at the Mission Rose project, the two large leaves were finished. Though still suffering a little bit of an internal debate over them, I decided to move on to the little leaves on the rest of the design.

Last week, we had a give-away here on Needle ‘n Thread for this pair of red Bohin embroidery scissors. They’re functional, they’re sharp, they cut well, they’re nicely weighted, and… they’re Red. What more could a person want?!

Today, I’ll announce the winner and tell you about a special something that’s coming up next week that, if you any interest in historical embroidery, you won’t want to miss!

So my good friend the Lattice Sampler, which began as part of the Stitch Fun series, is almost finished.

On the one hand, this is a good thing, because I find it distracts me now and then. On the other hand, this is a bad thing, because I find I like to be distracted by it.

Also, it has proved to be a good Thinking Project. I spoke about this last time we looked at the lattice sampler – when I’m at loose ends and can’t figure out what to do next, putting in a few stitches on this thing gives me time for putting my thoughts in order and laying out other plans. So I’ll be sorry to see it finished (on the one hand) – but… on the other hand…

I wish I had more hands.

A little while ago, I was asked to try a new (to me, anyway!) line of hand sewing needles from Pony.

Even though I have my favorites when it comes to embroidery needles, this doesn’t mean that I don’t use other brands. I do, and quite frequently. And I like all the needles I use, for different reasons. Believe it or not, I’m not super picky about embroidery needles, as long as they don’t have burrs and they do their job.