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
August 20, 2010
One of the questions that came up the other day when we were speaking of Cosmo embroidery floss was whether or not I had tried their two-stranded embroidery thread. I haven’t yet, but I will. It’s an interesting concept, and I would guess that the two-strand embroidery floss off the spool has come about thanks to the popularity especially of redwork and other line embroidery common to quilting.
August 19, 2010
My sister Sarah has a friend who has a thing for squirrels. With that in mind, Sarah set about stitching a squirrel for her pal for Christmas. The design was originally meant to be stitched over two, on 28 count linen, but I persuaded her that over one on 28 count would be really cute…. Then I talked her into Turkey Work.
August 18, 2010
When an e-mail arrived from the Director of Marketing at the Florence Griswold Museum, asking me to help spread the word about their upcoming fall exhibit titled With Needle and Brush: Schoolgirl Embroidery from the Connecticut River Valley, a couple things popped into my mind: 1. To my knowledge, the exhibit’s been announced on at least two popular needlework websites already – Needleprint and Thistle Threads. People are going to see it as old news; and 2. FIELD TRIP!
August 17, 2010
Back to Floss Talk! The embroidery floss that I mentioned last week is Cosmo Embroidery Floss. Several readers commented in the original Floss Talk post about Cosmo Embroidery Floss, so you probably already know that it isn’t a new floss, though it is new to me. It’s very popular among quilters and is found more often in quilting stores, I think, than in regular needlework shops.
I’ve wanted to try out Cosmo floss for a while, after hearing about it from readers and getting several questions via e-mail about it. So far, I’ve only done a little bit of stitching with it, so I thought I’d share my first impressions.
August 16, 2010
The Hand Embroidered Pall Saga is not quite over. Today, I’ll show you some steps I took towards finishing the project (which isn’t finished yet), and explain some further precautions I took with it (the tale didn’t actually end!). I’ll also try to answer some questions that came up the last time we visited this embroidery project.
August 15, 2010
Erin, a reader in Michigan, sent me some photos of an embroidery project that she inherited from a friend. I bet many of us can relate to receiving a partial embroidery kit from friends or relatives, and not knowing where to find the missing elements. In Erin’s case, she has the fabric stamped with the design, and nothing else. Some stitching has already been done on the project, and she would like to finish the rest.
August 14, 2010
Yesterday, I brought up the subject of favorite embroidery flosses, specifically of the cotton 6-stranded variety. While I was writing that post, it brought to mind all my favorite embroidery threads. And among the favorites is what we call in the US “coton a broder,” a 4-ply, non-divisible, mercerized cotton thread that is used especially for whitework. If you’re not familiar with what it is and what it looks like, you can read a previous article on coton a broder and thread organization, which will give you some information about the thread.
