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 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.
April 13, 2012
When last we visited the Medallion Project, we discussed stretching pearl purl for the outline around the inside of the medallion. Since then (it seems ages ago!), I’ve finally finished the goldwork around the cinquefoil (five-petal shape) on the inside of the medallion and have started adding the gold to the Tudor-style roses.
These days, it seems as if the goldwork is never-ending! But the tediousness of the goldwork is extremely worthwhile, because it really enriches the whole project.
April 12, 2012
How do you store your embroidery threads? This question has troubled me for a while.
Over time, I’ve been investing in complete ranges of threads that I know I will be using in my hand embroidery projects. There are obvious reasons to have the whole set of any given line of thread on hand, the primary one being that threads are to the embroiderer what paints, pencils, pens, or crayons are to the artist. If you don’t have just the color you need or you don’t know just what colors are available, then the designing stage becomes decidedly more difficult. Of course, the artist can mix paints, and to a degree, we can do that with threads, but not in quite the same way, right?
Real thread cards are a partial solution to this, but not an entire solution. On a real thread card, you can see a real piece of each color of thread in a range of embroidery thread. The drawbacks? One, you can’t stitch with the thread sample. If you have the whole skein or spool, you can actually stitch with the thread and see how it looks in the overall design. Two, not every thread line has a real color card, so you have to make your own, which requires you to have the whole range of threads, anyway.
So, a long term storage solution for expensive whole sets of threads became a priority for me. I started hunting around for something that would not only work, but would work for the long haul. Plastic boxes, cardboard boxes, and the like were not on my “favorite” list, because over time, the chemicals in plastic and in cardboard that isn’t archive-friendly could have an adverse effect on embroidery threads. The same applies to wood. While I was hunting, I developed the following criteria for a thread storage solution:
1. Safety – the threads should be free of possible damaged due to storage
2. Logic – the threads had to be easily viewed and easily arranged in a systematic way so that they could be easily found
3. Space-Consciousness – the arrangement had to fit within the spacial limitations of my workroom
3. Aesthetic Appeal – while the storage solution didn’t have to be beautiful, I didn’t want it to be ugly. It at least had to be neat and clean looking.
