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
April 24, 2012
Details matter. Sometimes, we might be tempted to overlook or forego the little details, thinking that they would never be noticed and never be missed. But in hand embroidery, it’s often the little details that make the biggest difference.
April 23, 2012
The thread junkie in me has been bubbling about with excitement, and the only thing for it is to share with you some new thread colors!
I’m always excited when I see new colors of my favorite threads appearing on the market. When a line of hand embroidery threads expands, it’s a good sign! Two of Au Ver a Soie’s threads are currently enjoying a nice expansion of colors – Soie de Paris and Soie Ovale.
April 20, 2012
Today, I’m going to point you to a resource for free Jacobean embroidery patterns and fillings. I’ve pointed out this free online embroidery book before, but it’s been a few years, and many of you might not know about it.
April 19, 2012
When doing goldwork embroidery that involves plunging threads, I admit that I’ve always been a Plunge-Sooner-Rather-Than-Later kind of gal. Being this kind of Plunger has both its advantages and its disadvantages. Recently, though, I’ve converted (or revolted), and now I’m a Plunge-Later. This is how things went:
April 18, 2012
Couching in its most basic form is among the easier embroidery stitches. Essentially, the couching stitch is just a little straight stitch taken over some other thread (or ribbon or wire) to hold it down. Couching with the simple straight couching stitch can be decorative when couching a filled area, because you can alternate the placement of the couching stitches to make designs over whatever thread is being couched.
But you can also approach couching from a different angle: consider it simply as tying down another thread (or ribbon or wire) with any stitch, besides just a straight stitch, and suddenly, many possibilities open up!
For today’s Stitch Play, I’ll show you some different takes on couching. You can apply these (and any others your imagination can drum up) when couching one thread, multiple threads at a time, a beautiful ribbon, or even metal threads.
April 17, 2012
Last week, I showed you the finished goldwork edge around the inside cinquefoil on the Medallion Project. One recurring question from that article was how to achieve the sharp corners with the couched Japanese gold thread. You know, that was a problematic part for me, too!
The easiest path to take when couching the gold would have been to work in two continuous lengths of the Japanese gold, side-by-side, so that the threads only had to be plunged twice while filling that whole area – once at the beginning of the couching and once when the whole outline around the cinquefoil was filled. As efficient and dreamily pleasant as it would have been to not have to stop to plunge threads, the sharp angles at each corner would’ve been lost with that approach.
The only approach that would keep the integrity of the design and achieve the effect that I wanted to achieve was to plunge the ends of the gold thread at every angle – a process that made sense but took decidedly more time.
Today, we’ll look at how I took the sharp corners on the cinquefoil shape, using Japanese gold thread.
April 16, 2012
We have a winner! Last week, I announced a give-away of Hazel Blomkamp’s new book, Crewel Twists. It’s a lovely book full of fun, really gorgeous embroidery projects that take a new twist on Jacobean style embroidery, incorporating different types of embroidery threads, beads, and techniques in various Jacobean-like designs. You can see some of the examples of the projects in the book by visiting my review of Crewel Twists, where you’ll also find information on the availability of the book.
