About

Mary Corbet

writer and founder

 

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

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Woad Winners!

 

Amazon Books

A big Thank You goes to Renaissance Dyeing for offering the two woad-dyed crewel embroidery thread packs for this give-away!

Without Andie’s offer, I would not have been so thoroughly entertained for the last few days! For some reason, the woad give-away inspired lots of witty responses. I decided the reason for this is that “woad” is just a funny word. Say it ten times slowly. You’ll see what I mean.

Woad-dyed Crewel Wool
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Satin Stitch Recaps

 

I’ve been thinking a lot about satin stitch lately. It’s probably the most question-provoking stitch out there. In concept, it isn’t a difficult stitch: really, when we satin stitch, all we’re doing is lining up straight stitches parallel to each other, to cover an area. Still, it’s not as easy as it sounds, is it?

The other day, I started browsing through articles on satin stitch here on Needle ‘n Thread, just to see if I’ve ever covered anything really meaningful and instructive about this glorious stitch – anything that people could really get their teeth into (or their fingers) and conquer once and for all the satin stitch. I came up with a lot of articles and a lot of thoughts on the stitch. It would take too long to recap too many points about satin stitch all in one place, so today, through pictures, I’m going to talk about materials that can be used to achieve a nice satin stitch. You can click on the photo to be taken to the blog post related to each photo.

Satin Stitch on a Monogram
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Pins, and more on Woad Dyeing of Textiles

 

You might wonder what pins (as in, sewing pins) and woad have in common. And I wonder the same thing! According to Tony Robinson, making pins and dyeing with woad are two of the worst jobs in history. Following up on yesterday’s post on dyeing wool threads with woad, I started squizzing around the internet and found some interesting information. But by far the most interesting – and entertaining – are a couple clips from Tony Robinson’s series, The Worst Jobs in History. So I thought I’d point these out to you, in case you haven’t seen them, to give a little more insight into the dyeing of wool with woad.

Wool Tapestry with Blue Background
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Dyeing with Woad in the South of France

 

Andie of Renaissance Dyeing offered to tell us a little bit about dyeing wool threads with woad, which is a plant that produces a blue dye. At Renaissance Dyeing, Andie uses natural plants and mordants available in the 16th century and earlier to achieve a gorgeous range of colors in her hand-dyed wool. I hope you’ll find her commentary on dyeing with woad as interesting as I do! All the pictures in the article can be clicked for larger versions.

Dyeing Wool with Woad
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Goldwork Techniques, Projects and Pure Inspiration – Book Review

 

Goldwork Techniques, Projects and Pure Inspirations by Hazel Everett – there’s a lot I could say about this book.

And I probably will say a lot about it. (Well, you know me… when the opportunity strikes, I do go on, don’t I?)

But, if I could sum it all up in a short sentence, it would be this:

You Need This Book.

Goldwork Techniques, Projects and Pure Inspiration by Hazel Everett
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