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
July 6, 2012
Today’s Stitch Play looks at a variety of different types of hand embroidered elements that feature petals or spokes. These types of circle-and-spoke elements come up often in hand embroidery, whether they are simple flowers made from detached chain (daisy) stitch to complicated affairs involving layers of petals in woven picots.
July 5, 2012
The woven wheel, also known as the woven spider web stitch, is a great example of a simple stitch that is versatile and beautiful. The woven wheel makes terrific flowers in almost any kind of thread. It’s used widely in ribbon embroidery for making roses, but it works well in surface embroidery using cotton floss, perle cotton, wool (it looks great in wool!), silk, and really, any kind of thread!
July 4, 2012
With the Stitch Play series and the refurbishing of the embroidery how-to videos here on Needle ‘n Thread, I’ve received a lot of questions lately about the samples that I show in the series and on the videos. The predominant questions are: What do you do with them? and How can I make a sampler like the ones you show, using the stitches in the videos?
Today, I’ll attempt to answer those questions!
July 3, 2012
Needlework tools and accessories are my One Weakness. I like any tool that helps the embroiderer in some way, whether it makes the embroidery process more delightful, or keeps the embroiderer more organized, or dispels confusion.
Needle I.D. Cards fall into a tool of the latter category: they help dispel confusion. And besides that, they’re just nifty little things to have on hand.
Today, I’d like to show them to you. They’re a new product, they’re quite darling, and if you’re good and you read the whole article, I’ll even give you the opportunity to win a set for yourself.
July 2, 2012
Damp stretching or blocking hand embroidery is one of the best ways to make ready a piece of hand embroidery for finishing or framing. I call this step blocking sometimes and other times, I call it damp stretching or damp blocking. The terms can be used interchangeably. The idea is simply that you are squaring up a piece of embroidery, stretching it out, and removing all the wrinkles, all at the same time.
I rarely take pictures of this process, because by the time I get to it, I’ve either finished taking pictures, or I’m not ready yet to take pictures. But it’s good to know how to do this, if you don’t already know. If you photograph your needlework, this is a wonderful way to get it ready for nice, clear, crisp photos.
Damp stretching in this manner assumes that your fabric is clean already. If you have stains or marks on your fabric, you should take care of those before blocking.
June 30, 2012
This past week while working up stitch samples and foraging through all kinds of threads to find just the right ones to embroider the samples, I fell in love again with my thread cabinets.
June 29, 2012
Registration is now open for Vintage Strawberries, an online embroidery class focusing on needlepainting, taught by Margaret Cobleigh here on Needle ‘n Thread. Please read on for further details about the class and information about enrolling in it.
Update: the class is full. We’ll keep you posted for future classes on Needle ‘n Thread!
