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
August 2, 2012
I’ve updated a few more embroidery stitch videos here on Needle ‘n Thread lately – not as many as I would like to have updated by now, but there will be a few more revised videos and some new stitch videos rolling out again in the near future. These are the recent revised videos and new additions that have been added to the collection. I hope you find them useful!
August 1, 2012
Turkey work (or Ghiordes Knot) is an embroidery technique that creates a thick carpet-like pile on the fabric. It’s great fun, and it’s a wonderful way to create, for example, animal tails.
July 31, 2012
The cast-on stitch is a beautiful hand embroidery stitch that can be used to embroider gorgeous, rich, dimensional flowers. The stitch is used frequently in Brazilian Embroidery, and it can be used just as effectively in stumpwork embroidery.
Now that we’ve looked at how to work the cast-on stitch, and we’ve gone step-by-step through making a little cast-on stitch layered flower, we’ll look at building on that layered flower concept a bit, to create a cast-on stitch rose.
July 30, 2012
The Royal School of Needlework has added to their collection of Essential Stitch Guides lately. The new title is Whitework, by Lizzy Lansberry. As soon as I heard the book was out, I ordered a copy right away – not only to review it for you, but also (and especially) because I love whitework. I figured if this book measures up to the other Stitch Guides produced by the RSN, then it’s bound to be a keeper!
And it does. And it is!
July 28, 2012
In the world of hand embroidery, there is quite a variety of isolated knot stitches. The Chinese knot is yet another knot stitch that can be added to the list. The Chinese knot is often illustrated worked as a line or filling.
July 27, 2012
Yesterday, I posted a how-to video for the cast-on stitch, and today, as part of the Stitch Play series, I’d like to follow up with a tutorial for making a very simple cast-on stitch flower. It’s the same flower I showed you in yesterday’s post – and we’ll go through it step-by-step, so you can get an idea of how to play around with the cast-on stitch.
Incidentally, you can substitute the bullion knot for the cast-on stitch and create a similar flower with a slightly different look, so feel free to play with both stitches. (I updated the video for the bullion knot this week – it’s much better than the old one!)
This is the flower we’ll create:
July 26, 2012
The cast-on stitch is a dimensional embroidery stitch. It sits up off the fabric, creating a textures stitch that works well for flower petals and for anywhere that you want clusters of texture on your embroidery.
