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
October 20, 2010
About a year ago, I wrote a post about Colbert Embroidery, which is a technique that combines surface embroidery, counted stitches, and voided areas on even-weave fabric. The technique interests me, because it provides a nice balance of color with bold, voided (blank) areas. As I mentioned in the last article on the subject, it seems like it would be a great technique to combine with Wessex-style stitchery.
October 19, 2010
The design for this pall, which I’ve embroidered several times, has always been a favorite. I’ve had lots of requests for a copy of it, so finally I managed to drum up a tracing. I’ll share it here, with some ideas on different ways to stitch it.
October 18, 2010
I am a firm believer that All Things Fabric are enhanced when embellished with hand embroidery.
Er… I was a firm believer. My conviction on the topic is a bit shaky right now!
October 17, 2010
This past August, there was a major change here on Needle ‘n Thread, and if you’re relatively new to the site, I’d like to take a little time to tell you about it. For those who have been following along for a while, you know that in August I introduced for the first time four commercial advertisements, to help cover the increasing costs of Needle ‘n Thread. Continue reading “Introduction to Needle ‘n Thread Site Sponsors”
October 16, 2010
Yesterday, we went through some steps of varying a blackwork embroidery design, starting from a simple wavy line and mixing things up. Today, I’ll show the rest of my fiddling with this particular blackwork square, and give you a printable version of the variations, in case you want to work them out in thread.
October 15, 2010
Following up on yesterday’s blackwork pattern, I thought I’d talk a little bit about developing designs for blackwork and show you a bit of the basic process of coming up with myriad patterns all from the same basic design.
I don’t normally sit around drawing blackwork patterns, but since it was part of the spot sampler series, I messed around a bit with one theme, and developed it into several different looks. So I thought I’d show you how I did that, and encourage you – if you’re interested in blackwork – to sit down with some graph paper and doodle out some designs. You’ll be surprised what you can come up with, employing only slight variations on a theme.
October 14, 2010
Following up on adding blackwork to the spot sampler, I thought I’d post some of the simple patterns I doodled for the lesson on blackwork.
The first one here is a leafy corner, just in time for autumn (on this side of the world). Of course, if you imagine the leaves green, it could also be just in time for spring and summer!
