June 1, 2012
How do You Solve the Dot Dilemma?
How do you solve the Dot Dilemma?
Not sure what the Dot Dilemma is? Well, then! Please allow me to show you:
May 31, 2012
Stitch Fun: Diagonally Striped Raised Band
One of the greatest aspects of hand embroidery is the unbelievable variety and sheer quantity of hand embroidery stitches and techniques out there.
Think about it: could you ever really get bored with hand embroidery? There’s just too much variety and too many possibilities to get bored with it, don’t you think? (Or is that just me? Ok. I admit to a slight obsession with this whole needle & thread thing…)
Lately, I’ve been having fun playing around with some of the stitches and techniques that are a bit off the Familiarly Trodden Embroidery Path. Feel free to jump on board and play around with these stitches, too. They’re really fun!
Following up on Casalguidi stitch and the raised stem stitch band, for today’s Stitch Play, I’m going to show you how to create a raised band that’s diagonally striped. It looks like this, give or take the little hairy tendrils on the right:
May 30, 2012
Digging Out to Dig In
Wherever you do your needlework – whether you have a workroom where all your embroidery projects develop, or you embroider in the perfect corner of your living room – unless you are a Super Organized Person, occasionally, you have to go through that stage that I call “Digging Out” before you can dig in to your next Great Needlework Undertaking.
Yesterday was a Digging Out day for me. I didn’t really mean it to be, but that’s just how things developed.
May 29, 2012
Beginner’s Guide to Goldwork – Book Give-Away!
Ruth Chamberline’s Beginner’s Guide to Goldwork (which I reviewed about five years ago) is an excellent instructional book in silk and goldwork embroidery. Meandering through my bookshelf the other day, I took the book out and started browsing through it. Next thing I knew, I was reading it again, cover to cover. It’s a terrific instructional book!
May 28, 2012
Not-So-New Embroidery Project Up Next
After finishing the Medallion Project, I’ve got an itch to stitch something completely different, to get back to basics, to explore several projects that have been brewing in my brain.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work that way, with “next up” embroidery projects.
May 26, 2012
I like Bohin – Their Needles & Their Company
Yesterday, we discussed English needles and the manufacturing of needles today. Most embroidery needle manufacturing in the world has been outsourced to regions where they can be produced with cheaper labor. As one reader commented, “the world is changing… and nothing is as it was or will be again.”
It may well be that the world has changed to the Cheaper Labor / Higher Returns model in manufacturing, and I do sympathize with the Producers of Goods who have been pretty well forced into that model, but there are companies in the needlework industry that have resisted that model. And these companies, in general, produce higher quality needlework products.
When it comes to needles, in Europe, there are still some factories that manufacture sewing needles. The best known of these is the Bohin company in France. Apparently, there is a manufacturer in Spain as well, but I haven’t been able to track that down and verify it.
May 25, 2012
The Broken Needle
Yesterday in her article English Needles No Longer Made in England, Trish Burr brought up a subject near and dear to my heart: The Needle.
