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
February 8, 2021
Every now and then, I liken certain pieces of embroidery to candy.
Lately, I’ve been working on the step-by-step instructions for a few of the little elements on Key to My Heart, this small, colorful embroidery project from last year.
Little pieces of embroidery always make me happy!
February 5, 2021
Good morning, and welcome to installment #2 on how to embroider wheat five ways!
Today’s tutorial will take a lot longer for me to edit the photos and write the article than it will for you to embroider the wheat. These are two very quick and easy ways to embroider wheat.
If you’ve been around Needle ‘n Thread for a while – or if you’ve embroidered my Festive Fall design – you will be familiar with the first method. It’s pretty much as basic as you can get.
The second method – also pretty basic – is probably my favorite way to embroider wheat. It always turns out looking really good, without a lot of effort!
Let’s get started…
February 3, 2021
Do you know what an “ear worm” is? It’s a song or sometimes a phrase or saying that keeps running through your head. I think the term is usually used when it’s music that you can’t get out of your head.
I won’t mention any particular songs, because I wouldn’t want to do that to you!
But every time I’ve picked up my Sea to Stitch project from this book by Elisabetta Sforza, that little tongue-twister pops into my head: She sells seashells by the seashore. This morphs into She sews seashells, and then Seashows soshells and Sheshews sheshows… and on it goes, knocking about in my head in every possible configuration.
So far, I’m liking the seashells! There are a few little bits that I wish I had paid more attention to, perhaps adjusted a little, but overall, the letter is coming along pretty well, and I’m infatuated with the shells.
February 1, 2021
I’ve been steadily plying the needle each day for at least 20 or so minutes on my “Stitch Fun 2021″ sampler – a completely random, no-rules (except a few), year-long stitching exercise.
Through the first weeks of January, I had some frustrating moments which I chalk up mainly to the set-up of this piece. The linen I’m using for it is quite a narrow strip – under 8″ wide, just under a 6” wide stitching width. I really should have planned better, but I was using a strip of fabric I already had cut and it seemed a good way to use it up.
If you’ve ever stitched on a piece of fabric that’s really too small, you know it can be frustrating. If you’re trying to use a hoop, you have to use one that’s smaller than you’d like, so you have to move it around on the embroidery – and that takes time and its own level of annoyance.
If you just barely fit the stitching area into a barely-fitting hoop, it makes for uncomfortable stitching. Everything feels cramped! You don’t have enough fabric on the sides to make adjustments in the hoop easily. And as you approach the perimeter of your stitching, which is being rudely encroached upon by your too-small hoop, you have to … uh… jump through hoops to get your needle in and out of the fabric on the very edge. And then don’t even mention having to turn the work over and fight with ending the thread for stitches crammed right up against the edge of the hoop! What a pain in the …!
Yes! You get the idea!
I decided to solve the problem on my SF2021 sampler once and for all, and then I ditched the hoop and substituted another solution altogether. This is how I solved my cramped-hoop problem – and this is how you can solve similar problems, when you need to make your fabric bigger, to fit a hoop or frame more comfortably.
January 29, 2021
One of my plans for Needle ‘n Thread in 2021 includes going back to basics in some respects, with more emphasis on embroidery tutorials. But not just stitches – stitches in action!
While it’s important for any embroiderer to know the mechanics of embroidery stitches and to develop at least a small, ready repertoire of them, it’s even better to know how to choose and use different stitches in designs, to add interest to our embroidery projects and to make stitches work for us.
To help with that, this year I will highlight small practice projects that demonstrate how to interpret design elements with different stitches.
This first tutorial focuses on how to embroider wheat five different ways.
Why wheat? You’d be surprised how many people ask me “Do you have a simple, realistic design for wheat?” or “I have a wheat design, but I don’t know what stitches to use on it.” (Also, I’m from Kansas. We do wheat.)
To kick off to this short series of tutorials for five ways to embroider wheat, here is a simple, realistic design – it’s pretty! – and the materials I’m using, with some tips for getting started.
January 28, 2021
Early this week, I had a really fun, fun chat with Sue Weeks over on Stitchery Stories! Stitchery Stories is … Continue reading Let’s Go Chat on Stitchery Stories! and Other News…
January 25, 2021
Good morning and happy Monday! It’s a bleak and rimy day here in Kansas, with a bit of a winter storm going on. In short, it’s a perfect indoor day!
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been digging about online for old embroidery inspiration, concentrating mostly on early 19th century and before. It’s really unbelievable how much information about early textiles is available online, right at our fingertips, through vast collections of old print material, made digital.
It’s a blessing… and a curse. It’s a blessing, because – wow! We can learn so much and see so much that we otherwise would never see!
It’s a curse, because… well, I call them rabbit holes. Once you head down them, it’s easy to go farther and farther and farther, and it’s hard to crawl back out.
But these online collections are such a good source of inspiration for embroidery and other forms of needlework. So I’d say they’re much more of a blessing than a curse, don’t you think?
