Independent craft blog since 2007
Fiber artist Susan Lenz has an awesome new solo show. The promotional materials say,
… Read More...LAST WORDS features Susan’s Grave Rubbing Art Quilt Series, her “Angels in Mourning” series, and a collection of epitaphs free-motion embroidered on sheer chiffon banners.
The Urban Threads e-newsletter encourages us all to try something new. It says,
… Read More...Applique designs can be a wee bit intimidating if you’ve never done them. Stop worrying! They’re easy, fun, light, and usually pretty quick-stitching. Check out our raw
For many embroiderers, the go-to filler is satin stitch, particularly for monograms. Mary Corbet of Needle ‘n’ Thread shows how effective stem stitch can be for filling a design, such as the letters in this ecclesiastical embroidery. And she explains … Read More...
Robin Kingsley of Bird Brain Designs says a product called Transfer-Eze eliminates the tedium of transferring embroidery designs. You can go from computer graphic to ready-to-stitch design in a couple of quick steps. Get the details from her blog post
After you take a few stitches, does your floss get rough and tangly? Mm-hmm. Mine, too. A tried-and-true solution to this problem is a sparing application of Thread Heaven, a thread conditioner. Jenny Hart of Sublime Stitching shows us just … Read More...
This piece — Sketchy by Iviva Olenick of Were I So Besotted — tickles the writer part of me and pleases the stitcher part. I love Iviva’s brain. That’s all. See more on her blog.
This week’s TAST challenge is waved chain stitch. See the tute on SharonB‘s Pin Tangle blog.
The fall Counted Wishes Cross Stitch Festival is now open and will be online through August 7. The site says,
The Counted Wishes Festival is a unique Needle Arts online show featuring a wide variety of artwork from many independent… Read More...
Janet Davies has posted a free desktop calendar for August that features her lovely needlework. Get the download from JMD Designs.
(1) Three madonnas from Le blog de 7 à la maison
(2) Petite Sorciére from un jour, une grille
(3) La Dame au chapeau from Elkalin
(4) Sampler Lili-Rose from les petites croix de Christine
(5) Lapin Blanc from un … Read More...
I love this series of embroidery designs from Kell of Kincavel Krosses. She’s rendering common greetings in Braille for cross-stitch. Or you can substitute French knots. Or you can add the related text with a backstitch alphabet. Or you … Read More...
This beautiful desktop calendar for August, featuring the embroidery of SharonB, is a free download from Pin Tangle blog. Go get it.
Sarah Whittle shows us how to stitch detached buttonhole bars, the perfect stitch for creating lacy spiderwebs. See the tute.
Oooooo! Look what Melissa Crowe (Checkout Girl) is up to: She’s sponsoring a contest that combines her two great creative loves — embroidery and poetry. She invites us to embroider a poem and submit a photo to a … Read More...
CrafTown.com publishes readers’ original craft designs, and right now they’re especially interested in “beefing up” their cross-stitch offerings. Although it’s not a paying gig, I’ve heard through the grapevine that the site gets 600,000 to 800,000 hits a month, which … Read More...
I received a sweet note from reader Sivani, gently pointing out an inaccuracy in credit for a design. I’ve been posting links to the French blog plaisirdecreer, which has been sharing a beautiful blackwork sampler in instalments. Sivani … Read More...
Laura Wasilowski of Artfabrik blog recommends using variegated thread to add life to hand stitching. She says,
… Read More...Changes in color value or hue make the surface more active and tantalize the eye. I’m making small quilts and I want to
This week’s TAST challenge is triple chain stitch. (See the tute on SharonB‘s Pin Tangle blog.) Shirley of Shirley’s Twisted Threads wasted no time in trying this one out. Within 24 hours after the challenge was … Read More...
Kim of big B shares her latest adventure with 100 stitches through a tutorial on zig-zag coral stitch. See the tute.
If you’re itching to try cross-stitch embroidery, Connie G. Barwick will get you started right. Connie is the cross-stitch editor at About.com, and she offers a series of tutorials designed especially for beginners: Stitch Your First Cross Stitch, How … Read More...