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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Crested Chain Stitch Video Tutorial

 

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The crested chain stitch! It’s pretty, it’s fairly simple, and it’s a neat little stitch to add to your repertoire!

What I like best about this stitch is that it can be made large or small, with just about any thread, on any fabric, and the look can be varied quite a bit, depending on how you work the stitch. You can use a heavier thread and increase the height of the stitch between the chain stitch and the top knot, and come up with something completely different looking when compared to the stitch worked small and compact with a finer thread. My favorite look of the stitch, though, is a bit more compact, used as an edge or border stitch.

Crested Chain Stitch Video Tutorial
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On Singing Frogs & Embellishments

 

It’s been a long time since I’ve written about needlework-related embellishments here on Needle ‘n Thread, and it’s been even longer since I’ve written about singing frogs.

The subject of Singing Frogs hasn’t come up too often in my life, actually, but when I came across this button in a little specialty shop one day, I succumbed to ISS – Impulse Shopper Syndrome – and I bought the darned thing! I thought I’d show it to you and share my needlework-related plan for it.

Singing Frog Button
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Twisted Chain Stitch Video Tutorial

 

The twisted chain stitch is a decorative line stitch that’s great for curves, straight lines, seam treatments in crazy quilting, or stems and branches in all kinds of surface embroidery (think: crewel work). Depending on how far you enter the fabric from the line you’re following, the “barb” on the twisted chain stitch will either be very noticeable (if you take your needle into the fabric far above or below your line) or hardly noticeable at all (if you work close to your line).

Twisted Chain Stitch Video Tutorial
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Spontaneous Hand Embroidery, Spontaneous Musing

 

Remember that felt and floche embroidery project I started the other day? It’s the only project I’ve ever named that actually had some sense in the name – Embroidered Chaos! Thank you all so much for your name input on yesterday’s embroidery pattern – your comments were so fun to read! It was fun to see how people’s perceptions are in many ways the same, and in many ways completely different!

Beginning the felt and floche embroidery project was rather fortuitous. It’s gotten an interesting reaction from among my students, and has raised a compelling question.

Felt and Floche in Hand Embroidery
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Free Hand Embroidery Pattern: A Circular Thing

 

I need to come up with a better way of naming embroidery designs. I mean, really. “Circular Thing” doesn’t say much.

Anyway, this is a motif taken from an old ecclesiastical embroidery book, but obviously, the design itself is adaptable to anything. You can turn it, arrange it, make it into a connect vine-type pattern…. and on and on. Or you can just work it as is. It reminds me of something that would be suitably adapted to crewel embroidery, but any thread and any fabric would work, pretty much.

Free Hand Embroidery Pattern
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French Knot Video Updated

 

I promise I won’t write a special post for each and every hand embroidery video that I update on Needle ‘n Thread in the future! But just to let you know what I’m doing behind the scenes, I thought I’d point out the update to the video on how to make a French knot. It’s the first of many updates to the Embroidery How-To Videos that will be rolling out in the next month or so. I plan, by the end of December, to replace many of the current videos. Most will be completely re-recorded, but the filming on a couple of them can be salvaged, I think, and just re-edited and re-processed. (If not, they’re out, too!)

French Knot How-To Video
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