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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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How to Embroider Daisies: Design & Materials

 

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Good morning, and happy Monday!

It’s spring here in Kansas (no comment about the expected 2-4″ of snow tonight and tomorrow!), and what better time to start thinking about embroidering summer flowers – specifically, daisies! Or, if you want, any of the daisy’s many varieties and relatives – from ox-eyes to marguerites to gerberas to asters, black-eyed susans, common sunflowers, and on and on and on.

What I love most about daisies is their distinct petal pattern and overall shape and structure. And while I like the simple common daisy, I’m drawn mostly to colored versions, like asters or gerbera daisies, or Kansas’s ubiquitous common sunflowers that grow wild by the roadside or more tamely in garden beds.

No matter what variety, daisies are happy flowers. There’s just something ever-so-cheery about them!

And that’s why the daisy is the focus of this third collection of lessons on How to Embroider (Blank).

In today’s first installment, you’ll find the design and the materials used for the stitched sample.

How to Embroidery Daisies: Design and Materials
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Briggs & Co Patent Transferring Papers: 1846-1901

 

I was reading an old needlework book the other day, published in 1907, when I came across a section on design transfer for embroidery. It began thus:

The transferring of designs on to the material is at no time a very easy occupation, and is certainly one which most people prefer to have done for them.

Some things haven’t changed much since 1907, methinks! Most of us who embroider for relaxation, for enjoyment, as a creative outlet, and even for a living are faced at one point or another with having to get a design onto fabric. For some, it can be a monumental deal-breaker. “If I have to transfer that, forget it.”

And while there are folks today who (hilariously – it always makes me chuckle!) will spurn iron-on transferring as if it is some kind of innovative, unworthy, inaccurate, or even harmful method of transfer (despite the massive leaps and bounds of ink science in recent decades), iron-on transfers have been the friend of the embroiderer for a long, long time.

Way back decades and decades – we can almost say centuries ago, and certainly longer than a century ago – methods of transferring embroidery designs were revolutionized by the iron-on transfer. And we continue to enjoy the benefits of the iron-on transfer today, thanks to those early pioneers in the process.

One of those pioneers was Briggs & Co.

In 1880 – that’s 141 years ago! – Briggs & Co published their catalog for patented iron-on embroidery transfers here in the US.

Briggs & Co transfer papers for embroidery
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Embroidered Strawberries Part 7: Last Touches & Finished!

 

Time to finish up the Strawberries!

We’ve followed this embroidery project featuring five strawberries from concept to completion, step by step, through a series of seven tutorials to finish the design.

If you’re just joining in on the tutorials, you’ll find the complete list of all the articles in this series on this Index Page. You’ll also find other How to Embroider (Blank) tutorials listed there as well.

Today, we’re going work the large leaf at the top of this design and all the stems, to finally arrive at this finish:

How to Embroider Strawberries - Completed
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How to Embroider a Wee Ladybug

 

Time to take a break from Strawberries!

I thought I’d show you how I embroider the wee ladybugs on the Garden Party ready-to-stitch towel sets I released a couple weeks ago.

I love little garden critters, and the ladybug (or “ladybird” depending on where you’re from) is always a favorite to add to whimsical floral designs like Garden Party.

At the end of the tutorial, we’ll talk about when and why you might make a slight alteration in technique on these little buggy dots.

How to Embroider a Ladybug
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Embroidered Strawberries Part 6: The Last Strawberry & Blossoms

 

After a nice little break over the holiday weekend, it’s time to get back to stitching! And what better way to do so, than to forge forward with our embroidered strawberries?

This is the second-to-last installment of this project. Today, we’ll look at the last strawberry – the small one, embroidered in long & short stitch – and we’ll see how to stitch the very simple blossoms.

Next time we visit the project, we’ll talk about stems and the large leaf.

This is a quick little episode! Ready?

How to Embroider Strawberries five different ways
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Happy Easter! With a Puzzle & Game for Spring

 

Good evening (here in Kansas, anyway!) and Happy Easter tomorrow!

I’m sending my Easter greetings out a little early, because I’ll be off tomorrow and Monday, celebrating Easter with my family here in Kansas.

From my house to yours, I wish you and yours the glory and joy of a beautiful Easter!

Just in case you’re looking for something Really Exciting to do this weekend, you’ll find this year’s Spring Eye Spy game and accompanying jigsaw included below. I hope you enjoy it!

Spring 2021 Eye-Spy Puzzle from Needle 'n Thread
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