05.21.10
Posted in General at 2:26 pm by deRomilly
So you want to learn embroidery, but are overwhelmed by all the information out there. I took some of the questions I ask my students when they are deciding what to learn first and put them into a quiz to rank four of the basic embroidery styles and suggest which one you should start with. Unfortunately I can’t plug the quiz in here, but you can find it here:
What Embroidery Style Should I Learn?
I don’t get any results back from this, but I’d love to know what your results are! Feel free to post in the comments. I got “freestyle” which is funny, since I started with and design cross stitch and crewel designs before I expanded out. But I guess we all change over time!
If you know how to create a quiz I can post IN my blog – please give me a heads up. My google-fu is failing mightily on this subject! And I’d rather not make you all click more than necessary!
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05.11.10
Posted in Stitching Genres at 1:42 pm by deRomilly
I was reminded yesterday by a friend of a technique I had taught her several years ago. She was intimidated by all the counting in counted cross stitch, and couldn’t find a pattern she liked to learn on in any case. The easy solution? Make her own, without counting. If I can talk her into letting me take a photo of her finished project I’ll try to post it here. 
What we did was the following:
- Find an iron on transfer or a line art/coloring design she liked from a clip art book.
- Transfer it onto a piece of counted fabric. In this case, aida.
- Now fill in the various areas with the stitch of your choice. In my friend’s case, I taught her long-armed cross stitch. You can also use tent stitch, cross stitch, satin stitch, or any other filling stitch, lacy or solid that you like. Or a variety of stitches.
- Stitch over the outlines with stem or back stitch.
- Voila! apparently counted work that wasn’t counted.
Note: I’m not sure how regularly I’ll be posting for the next few weeks. Our old lady cat is in home hospice care, in the last stages of thyroid disease AND renal failure, so I find myself watching her and worrying more than I ought to, perhaps.
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10.27.09
Posted in Samplers at 6:47 pm by deRomilly
Also back in my not-quite-a-UFO pile, we find the Acorn Sampler kit from The Drawn Thread. This was a fun little piece to stitch, and I’d really like to hang it on my wall, so I should probably get around to finishing it and getting the hardware for it. It’s white and colored work and a variety of stitches throughout the band, including some pulled whitework. It came with the cutest little acorn charm for the bottom!
As usual, click for the full picture and details!
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Entire Sampler
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Detail 1 – Top of sampler
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Detail 2 – Middle of sampler
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Acorn Sampler – Detail 3 pulled work bottom
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09.08.09
Posted in General at 7:00 am by deRomilly
And so little time to play with them!
Just offhand, I can think of bargello, berlin, broderie anglaise, hardanger, mountmellick, stumpwork, cutwork, punto in aria, zardozi, bunka, japanese embroidery, wessex embroidery, counted cross stitch, band samplers of every ilk, canvaswork, goldwork, shisha, macramé, blackwork, or nué, crewelwork, schwalmwork, Dresdenwork, Assissiwork, and so on…
My problem, of course, is that when it comes to thread I am a glutton. I want to learn everything and try every technique, no matter how complex. Of course, this isn’t feasible, especially when you realize that I include all thread work in that desire – including knitting, crochet, bobbin lace, needlelace, sprang and any number of other techniques that escape me at the moment, including plain sewing. (I have made a conscious decision NOT to try naålbinding — knitting on TWO needles was confusing enough for me. I don’t really want to try knitting with only one, however historical it is.
There isn’t, of course, enough time in the day to explore everything I want tot do. I try not to let that stall me, and just keep going. I do find myself back at three in particular that I love: cross stitch, silk shading, and crewelwork. I’m sentimental, and these are the three that my mother and grandmother taught me. Somewhere I still have my first cross stitch sampler — the one that took me four years to finish because I kept getting bored. When I find it I’ll post it. I have some sort of idea of charting it (it was stamped on cheap muslin) and doing it again in my current ability level and then framing them side by side. I think it would be cool. Will I make the time? Who knows.
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07.31.09
Posted in Stitching Genres at 3:08 pm by deRomilly
Working my way through my box… also on the “decorate a bathroom in my house” concept, there are three of the Kats by Kelly designs all stitched. These are actually stitched with the KbK signature in the corner, rather than my initials, because I feel Kelly’s signature is very much a part of the design, and they ARE her artwork. I love these. In particular, Gone Fishin’ reminds me of my own baby Rhys, gone now for a bit over a year. I miss that cat. He used to “fish” just like that on our dinner plates in college when we didn’t have a table to eat at. And if you called him on it, he would get this look like “What? Oh dear. How DID that paw get THERE?!” As if we didn’t know.
Yeah. Rhys. I miss him.
Click to see the entire image in a larger format.
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Gone Fishin’
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Paperwork
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Purrnina
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