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
Contact Mary
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
Contact Mary
March 5, 2013
I love it when a plan comes together!
Last week, I showed you the new thread cabinets in my workroom, with various threads getting sorted and stowed in them. Over the weekend, I tackled the last group of threads – goldwork threads! – and I’m so glad to have them sorted, because I have some exciting projects looming!
It’ll be nice to know what I have and what I don’t have.
March 4, 2013
So you want to embroider eggs, and you’ve gathered all your supplies. You have the preliminary tools necessary, you have your embroidery supplies (including some specialty needles), and you’re ready to start!
Now it’s time to sit down with your eggs and work out your designs and do your drilling. This is the process I go through for the final egg preparation right before embroidering it, including getting the design on the egg, drilling, and final cleaning.
March 2, 2013
Today, just a quick post to put up an index for Hand Embroidery on Eggs, so that, if you decide you want to try it, you can find these tips all located in the same spot on Needle ‘n Thread.
March 1, 2013
Dang! Sometimes, stitching is frustrating!
It’s true! But I figure if everything we did with a needle and thread were easy, if every stitch we took and every project we tackled turned out perfect at the first go, would we really love needlework as much? Would we really love the satisfactory finish as much? Would we really relish the triumph of finishing well something that was challenging?
Probably not. It’d be a lot like living on vacation the rest of your life. Sounds great, but if you never have to work, where’s the fun in a vacation? Where’s the anticipation? Where’s the blissful regret at the conclusion?
I’m saying all this to convince myself, and to console myself over my recent fight with Hungarian braided chain stitch. It was a beautiful brawl! I’m not sure yet who won.
Last week’s Stitch Glitch explored how to start and stop the Hungarian braided chain stitch when switching threads; this week, we’re exploring at how to join a circle invisibly.
February 28, 2013
“Stash” is something that goes hand in hand with needlework. Even if you’re just starting out with embroidery, you’ll probably find pretty quickly that you can’t get too far away from building at least a wee stash of embroidery supplies, tools, fabrics, and whatnot.
Because embroidery is what I do (I’m very fortunate to be able to say that my hobby is my job), I have an extensive stash. I use my stash for planning embroidery projects for teaching or demonstration and for working up tutorials and follow-along projects for Needle ‘n Thread.
The most important part of my stash is my collection of embroidery threads. Because I live out in the boonies, it’s important to me to have threads I use on hand. I can’t just hop down to a needlework shop or to a craft or hobby shop for even regular embroidery floss. So I have a jolly collection of threads, and the storage and organization of them is an important consideration.
February 27, 2013
The last time we glimpsed inside this piece of old goldwork ecclesiastical embroidery, we looked at one petal of the lily and talked about how it was created. But the lily has more to show us, so we can’t just leave it and move on to the next goldwork element yet!
In fact, though it was interesting to look at one petal, the Really Interesting Stuff about the lily is ahead. When we take the whole lily apart, we’ll see that there’s a lot more to learn about this type of goldwork than simply how the technique is done.
For example, we’ll find out whether or not the same padding and card were used on the whole lily, we’ll find out how the stamens (stitched in bright check purl, or frieze brilliant) were worked on top of the gold, and we’ll discover the order in which the whole flower must have been worked.
So, let’s dig in!
February 26, 2013
Battlement couching is used in hand embroidery as a colorful filling stitch.
Continuing with different lattice stitches in the Stitch Fun series, today we’re going to look at battlement couching and see just how easy it is to do!
I think this is my Favorite laid thread / lattice technique – I love the way it looks when it’s worked with several colors! When it’s just worked with one color, it’s kind of ho-hum, but when you start adding a gradient of color, it’s much more exciting!
