I was pretty happy and excited about Aubrey Longley-Cook‘s Fireworks series. And then I spotted his Fuel Fossil works. Now I don’t know whether to be happy or sad. But, either way, I love Aubrey’s brain. See more on … Read More...
Steal this idea: Stitched birthday card
Martha Stewart might have the most creative staff in the world. I love The Crafts Dept. blog, where Martha’s staffers post snippets about what’s going on in their world. For Martha’s birthday recently, the summer interns created handmade cards for … Read More...
In your own best interests: Stitch an owl cosy
I’m still laughing. Deadlyknitshade posted the following on Crafty Crafty:
… Read More...A lonely egg sitting in its egg cup slowly cooling while you’re waiting for your toast to cook. It’s a tragic part of many a morning and quite frankly
Tutorial: Perfect satin stitch
Carina of Carina’s Craftblog offers tips and tricks for perfect satin stitch. See the tute.
Tutorial: Siennese stitch
This week’s TAST challenge is Siennese stitch. See the tutorial on SharonB’s Pin Tangle blog.
Series roundup: Spring in Italy
Kathy of The Unbroken Thread has created a roundup of her posts on the Spring in Italy sampler, where she tested various threads on the same motif (taken from Italian pottery designs). The sampler became not just a lovely work … Read More...
Stitch a sweet treat
Marisa of Elegant Bloggery has added some new cupcake designs to her collection of free coloring pages. I think her gorgeous line art would make outstanding patterns for hand embroidery (for personal use, of course). Go see Marisa’s handiwork.
Free charts: Cross-stitch
Free patterns: Hand embroidery
Everyone who enjoys stitching is invited! We have some new designs for you to test out!
We enjoy discovering new and imaginative embroidery patterns, and we’ve found several that are excellent for you to try!
Our staff combed the internet … Read More...
Free charts: Cross-stitch
Tutorial: Crown stitch
Free pattern: Embroidered needlecase
Kaaren of The Painted Quilt shares the pattern and instructions for recreating her favorite sampler-style needlecase. She says,
… Read More...I’ve been using this one every day since I made it. It has two deep pockets and a scissor holder and needle/pin
Tutorial: Interlaced band stitch
Kim of big B continues sharing tutorials that demo her progress in mastering 100 stitches. This gorgeous example is interlaced band stitch. See the tute.
Inspiration: Calamity Kim
Calamity Kim combines her signature raw-edge applique and machine stitching with some hand embroidery to create a gnome-village table runner to die for. She says she’ll eventually complete the hand stitching and then quilt and bind it. In the meantime, … Read More...
How a pattern can help girls in crisis
Mollie Johanson is awesome. Her latest project: a set of hand-embroidery patterns called I love being a girl. Mollie says,
… Read More...This is from the first in (hopefully) a series of patterns that each focus on one of the reasons why
Tutorial: Buttonholed herringbone stitch
Sarah Whittle demos buttonholed herringbone stitch. See the tute.
Try stem stitch as a filler
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...
Print and stitch!
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… Read More...
How to apply Thread Heaven
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...
Tutorial: Waved chain stitch
This week’s TAST challenge is waved chain stitch. See the tute on SharonB‘s Pin Tangle blog.