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my favourite stitches

Because I have set you the challenge of thinking about your favourite stitches, I have been considering what mine are. Its not so terribly easy, is it?!

So the easiest thing for me to do was to look through my left and right-handed stitch dictionaries. So here’s my list:

up and down buttonhole stitch (p28) [...]

special stitches

It seems that from our Mountmellick embroidery stitch along, some people have discovered the beauty of cable plait stitch for the first time. Its been a favourite of mine for some time because it is so very pretty.

cable plait stitch

I discovered all sorts of weird and wonderful stitches while researching and putting [...]

playing with feather stitch

I was working on my exhibition embroidery recently and decided to test something that I had been wondering about. I had been pondering what would happen if you worked a feather stitch, stab-wise (ie, not scooping), but instead of just bringing the needle up inside the curve of working thread, you wrapped the thread round [...]

Right-handed stitch dictionary now available!

Ta Da! The Right-Handed Embroiderer’s Companion: a step-by-step stitch dictionary was delivered yesterday afternoon. That means I will be posting all orders today, and all future orders will be posted as they are received.

The Right-Handed Embroiderer’s Companion came about because The Left-Handed Embroiderer’s Companion was receiving such rave reviews from both left and right-handers, [...]

French Mountmellick embroidery

When I was away in Ethiopia, my colleague Belinda sent me on an email that she had received in my absence. It was an enquiry from a publisher in France who wanted to know if I could supply them with any images for an article that they were writing on Mountmellick embroidery.

On my return [...]

Left-handed embroidery book review

Another review of The Left-Handed Embroiderer’s Companion for you today. This one is from Mary Hickmott’s New Stitches. I received my copy of this a while ago, and just yesterday found it again at the bottom of a pile of books, so now I can share it with you.

From the review in the May [...]

Right-handed advance copies on their way!

I got an email yesterday from my printers to let me know that my advance copies of The Right-Handed Embroiderer’s Companion are currently being couriered to me. Wow! This is earlier than I expected!

Before a books shipment is delivered in full, the printer normally sends a couple of “advance copies”, so called because [...]

experimenting with synthetic gold thread and plaited braid stitch

I did a little experiment yesterday with the Kreinik Japan No 7 thread. I really wanted to see how it would go, in case I decide that I want to use gold thread on my beret. I don’t think real metallic thread would be happy about being rained on.

Kreinik Japan No 7 thread is [...]

illustrations versus words

Mary Corbet made an interesting observation the other day. She pointed out that many older instructional embroidery books have many more words and few diagrams/photos, whereas newer embroidery instructional embroidery books have many diagrams/photos and fewer words.

This is quite true. I think about one of my favourite old stitch dictionaries (published in 1934), Mary [...]

an interesting question

Yesterday when I was cheeky enough to ask my local needlework shop why they didn’t have my new book in, during the conversation the shopowner asked me “Are you left-handed?” I replied that I am.

When she heard that The Right-Handed Embroiderer’s Companion was due out in August, she asked why I can write the [...]