French Knots!!!

French Knots are one of my favorite embroidery stitches. I love the texture and the many ways they can be used and it is a rare piece that I don't find a way to add them in.

I usually use embroidery floss and French Knots can be made with anywhere from one to all six strands of floss. The number of strands used will help determine how large the knots are. Another factor is how many times the thread is wrapped around the needle. One of the most helpful things I have done is make a grid of French Knots using from 1 to 6 strands of floss and one to four wraps. This little grid is helpful when deciding what size knot I want to fill in an area or create a round counter point. You might consider making one for yourself to keep as a handy reference. I can't tell you how often I use it - but a lot! Here is what it looks like.

Here are some of my favorite ways to use French Knots.

To fill in areas like the sheep and treetops.

To fill in for texture in a background or border.

To enhance other stitches and create the center of flowers.

Another example of adding them to a set of stitches.

If you have not tried French Knots, they can be a little tricky but here is an excellent video as well as some stitching tips from the fabulous Mary Corbet of needlenthread.com.  

I thought I'd end with bright pink French Knots exploding out the ends of this flower. Happy knotting! 

Four Ways to Embroider Text

Rumi Wisdom

When I taught my first beginning embroidery class a few years ago, one of the first questions I was asked was how to embroider text. It is such a good skill to have so I made sure the design I made for my next class included text. As you can see, it was a spiral with text underneath. I enjoyed the format of the design so much that I have continued designing spirals with interesting quotes. It also has led me to try out different methods of embroidering text. I'll discuss the three I've used, each one giving a little bit different effect and another that is quite common but not on my spiral designs.

Back Stitch Letters

When I designed Rumi Wisdom I knew I wanted to use back stitch because this was going to be used to teach beginning embroidery stitches. It is an easy enough stitch that covers lines very well and works up pretty quickly. A drawback is the letters end up looking a little blocky. If you want smooth curves, this might not be the best stitch to use. 

Emerson Winter

The second spiral design, Emerson Winter, has letters that are a little more stylized with small curves at the ends of some of the letters. I knew that using a back stitch wouldn't give me the look I wanted, so this time I used couching. If you've not done any couching you might find it awkward at first because you have to manage two threads in two needles but after a little practice it is easy. Basically one thread is placed over the line you want it to cover (called the laid stitch) and with the second needle and thread (referred to as the working thread) it is tacked down with tiny stitches. In the case of Emerson Winter I used embroidery floss, but this method allows you to use laid thread that is difficult to stitch with (metallic, thick, fuzzy or loopy threads) because it isn't going in and out of the fabric with every stitch. Couching allows you to get all the loops in the letters you could ever want. 

Couched Letters

Grateful Heart

The next design I created, Grateful Heart, used a different treatment. These letters also have a lot of loops and serifs but I wanted them to stand out more and so I first stitched them all using stem stitch. If you've stitched many curves with stem stitch you know the thread sometimes has a tendency to fall over on itself and the curves aren't very well defined. To keep the definition of the letters I then stitched a satin stitch over the stem stitch. So, essentially, the stem stitch acts as a padding. Although this is fairly time consuming, it creates a really lovely raised letter and I would do it again in a minute.

Working Satin Stitch Over Stem Stitch

All of the lettering in these projects is pretty linear but another method of covering letters that have larger areas to be filled is satin stitch. This is often seen on vintage linens that have monograms. to see some fine examples of satin stitch monograms go here. Mary Corbet's Needle n Thread has a fine list of amazing examples.

In addition, here are links to Mary's videos that give excellent instructions for creating the stitches that were discussed. 

Back Stitch

Couching

Stem Stitch

Satin Stitch

Happy Stitching!

Free Hand Embroidery Projects

My first embroidery with a few supplies

Sometimes I like to play around with stitch patterns and designs, other times I like someone else to provide the inspiration. The other day I stumbled upon some free embroidery projects and decided to do some further exploration and share my finds with you. 











Mary Corbet's Needle n' Thread

The first comes from one of my favorite embroidery sites, Mary Corbet's Needle n' Thread. Mary has a whole page of patterns that can be printed and used for stitching. Some would make excellent applique designs as well. She, generally speaking, gets her patterns from vintage embroidery books. She then cleans them up with her graphics program and puts them up for all of us to use. After you are inspired by the free designs, check out the rest of her site. It's a world of great information!

Dillmont Rose Hand Embroidery Pattern
I opened my messages this morning and found that Mary Corbet just put a new free pattern on her blog! It is a pretty symetrical medallion flower pattern. It isn't posted on her free embroidery pattern page yet so I couldn't let the opportunity to share her newest pattern with you!

The Embroiderer's Guild of America
Not only is this a good organization but, they have some free stuff even if you're not a member! While there are a few patterns on the page there are several instructional booklets that can be downloaded that give good information on stitching. The topics include Technique Basics of Surface Stitchery, Counted Cross Stitch, Blackwork and Stumpwork.

Embroidered Owl and Flowers
On Instructables I found this darling owl idea from craftknowitall.


Sewn Up Teresa Down Under
I was going to choose just one project from this site to show you but there are so many adorable ones I decided to post a page with links to all of her projects. I especially adore the napkins with a French poem embroidered on them and creating an embroidery from designer fabric. You'll have fun roaming through her projects, I think.

Gettin' Stitchy

You've got your design transferred on the fabric, it's all hooped up and ready to go, but wait, you need some stitches! There are some amazing links with stitch libraries on the web. Some include video while others have excellent drawings and photographs. It seemed silly for me to do a bunch of my own so I thought I'd share a little bit of what is out there.  

When I do embroidery I mostly use a few simple stitches, seed stitch, stem stitch, french knots and satin stitch.  If you master these you are armed to start making art.  While many of these stitches are used as outlines or decorations I like to use them as filling stitches to create images of thread.  More about that later though...I want you to get the hang of the basic ones and then we'll get on to the really creative part. There are so many stitches to learn on the sites I've posted that it is easy to get overwhelmed. To keep it simple, you can start with the ones I've listed above (they are all linked) but do check out these links. They are so inspirational!

Mary Corbet's Needle 'N Thread Videos

     Mary's site is jam packed with information and inspiration

Sarah's Hand Embroidery Tutorials

     Beautifully photographed and explained

Sublime Stitching Tutorials  

    Jenny Hart of Sublime Stitching put together some great tutorials. Check out her wacky embroidery patterns while you're there.

Sharon Boggon's Pintangle Stitch Dictionary
       An extensive list of beautiful stitches