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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Pins, and more on Woad Dyeing of Textiles

 

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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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Painted Strawberries

 

Normally, I write about embroidery. Today, I’m writing about paint.

Sometimes, you can combine the two concepts. You can embroider painted things. You can paint embroidered things. You can paint something that looks embroidered. Or you can embroider something that looks painted!

These sweet little strawberries are painted by Carolyn Phillips, of Sunshine Designs. Carolyn paints little pretty things on silk dupioni, and I think that’s how we started chatting about her paintings – we were discussing silk fabric. Carolyn does all kinds of interesting things with fabric.

But these strawberries – they are especially sweet!

Strawberries painted on silk dupioni
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