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 2, 2010
Stem stitch is a versatile stitch. Not only is it great for outlining, but it works really well as a filling, too. I’m using it to fill the letters on the pall I’m embroidering, and even though it’s slower going when compared to just outlining, I do like the results.
August 1, 2010
Off and on this week, I’ve been able to spend some time in the afternoons out in the “studio” getting some stitching done on this hand embroidered pall that I’m trying to finish. Working out there in the afternoons is terrific! I’d almost forgotten how much more a person can get done when working in a “dedicated” space. It’s cool and quiet, with few interruptions… except for Emma.
Two of my nieces have been working out there with me – Anna is working on the first pall that I set up and Emma, who’s now 9, is working on a stamped pillow case. Emma is prone to knots. So every six minutes, practically on the dot, she says, “Ooooooooh. Another knot!”
Guess who the Official Knot Remover is? Riiiiiight!
Still, the pall is coming along!
July 30, 2010
I’ve discussed before the needlework magazines that I subscribe to – and there are really only a few: Inspirations, Sampler & Antique Quarterly, (sometimes) Piecework, and (sometimes) a French Mains et Merveilles magazine. The first two are “always,” the latter two have been off and on.
And all those needlework magazines are good. They provide projects, history, techniques, and all sorts of stuff that help me learn, understand, and have better insight into all kinds of needlework, past and present.
But there’s a new magazine coming out this fall – and it’s not entirely your typical needlework magazine. I have found my curiosity piqued. What the heck is Spool all about? If nothing else (and I’m hoping it’ll be a lot else), it looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun!
July 29, 2010
‘Struth! I have got to get this blackwork fish FINished! And with that in mind, here and there over the past week – 15 minutes here, 10 minutes there, even an hour hither and yon, I set about to make some progress.
Actually, I set about to finish it, but I didn’t make it that far!
When last we left the blackwork fish, he was just barely afloat, looking like this:
July 28, 2010
Did you know that Jane Nicholas’s new Tiles book is out? And along with it, lots and lots of kits? Oooooh. The temptation is strong, let me tell you! The other night, I was perusing her kits from the new book, and adding the ones I really like to the shopping cart.
It was midnight. I was tired. My will was weak.
I added one kit after another. I was throwing caution to the wind! After all, why not? I’d do them… eventually.
And it was midnight. And I was tired. And my will was weak.
July 27, 2010
Do you ever suffer under the delusion that you’re making a lot of progress on your needlework, but when you step back to take a look at what you’ve done, you find yourself smacked in the face with the cold, dead Fish of Reality? That’s me right now! Wow. Yesterday, I was patting me on the shoulder, telling me that there were no worries, that I was almost done with this project! What the heck was I thinking?
No matter – we must always subscribe to the notion that some progress forward, be it even a little, is a good thing. It isn’t stagnating, after all, and – better yet – it isn’t going backwards. So here’s my wee bit of progress so far on the hand embroidered pall that I’m currently working on.
July 26, 2010
Quite a while ago, when I was exploring Lefkara Lace, I heard from a reader who was looking for a resource for Rhodes Embroidery. If you search online for Rhodes Embroidery, most likely you’ll come up with lots of references to Rhodes stitch, but this isn’t what the reader was asking about. She was looking for information on a form of whitework that mimics embroidery originating in Rhodes, and which is basically a pulled thread technique. While I was exploring online the other day, coming across oh-so-many needlework books to meander through, one of the books I came across which I should have mentioned long before this is The Cult of the Needle by Flora Klickmann. Like Elementary Embroidery, the book I pointed out yesterday, this is another gem that is worth downloading and keeping.
I’ve had the PDF version of this book for a long time, nestled in the deep recesses of my folders-within-folders-within-folders on my computer (covered in cobwebs, along with hundreds of other PDFs), but it wasn’t until I was using the handy-dandy “flip through the pages” set-up on the Internet Archive that I made it through every page in the book. And what did I come across?
