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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Hand Embroidery from Italian Pottery

 

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What inspires your creativity? In this series of guest posts, Kathy Andrews is going to explore several different designs inspired by Italian pottery. She’s going to show us not only her designing process, but also the effects of different threads used on similar designs.

Italian Pottery Inspires Hand Embroidery Designs
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Needlework Threads: On Natural Dyeing, part 1

 

Yuki Sugashima lives in Japan and is author of the blog Barefoot Shepherdess. Yuki started out as a knitter and spinner, but has recently moved into embroidery and natural-dyed threads. In the Barefoot Shepherdess’s Etsy shop, you’ll find naturally dyed embroidery threads of amazing color! The natural dyeing process is fascinating and Yuki writes about it beautifully – I hope you enjoy reading a little bit about Yuki’s adventures with naturally dyed threads.

Roadside Yomogi for Natural Dyed Embroidery Threads
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Book Review: A-Z of Stumpwork

 

A-Z of Stumpwork was originally published by Country Bumpkin Publications, but, as of 2015, it has been recently re-published by Search Press, along with the rest of the A-Z needlework series.

This is good news for embroiderers worldwide, because the A-Z books are some of the best embroidery reference books (and the most beautiful!), and they’re now available to a wider audience, more affordably.

A-Z of Stumpwork focuses on dimensional embroidery techniques, made famous in 17th century embroidery, and enjoying a huge resurgence in popularity today.

A-Z of Stumpwork Book Review
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Needlework on the Road?

 

Do you do needlework on the road? If you do, I’d love to hear from you! See, I’m leaving on Thursday on a rather extended road trip (I’ll be telling you more about it later this week!), and I’m questioning whether or not I’ll take any needlework with me!

The first “on the road” needlework project I ever did developed into this:

Felt Embroidered Needlebook Cover
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Thread Drop Winner!

 

It was a lot of fun to read everyone’s organization tactics for their needlework threads! If you haven’t had a chance yet to read through the comments (there are 285 of them!) on the Thread Drop post from the other day, you might want to take a look at them for some good hints on thread organization – and for some chuckles, too! I think most avid stitchers can understand the difficulties of keeping things organized, especially when we’re really eager to stitch, and the clean-as-you-go theory just seems to get in the way!

Thread Drops for Embroidery Thread Organization
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