Last week, Kara filled you in on our upcoming Hopeful Flowers Stitch Along, and we were delighted by the interest. Our Facebook group grew by hundreds of eager stitchers wanting to learn some new embroidery skills! Thank you all for your participation; we hope you are as excited as we are to get started next week!
You will not only be able to use those new embroidery techniques in our Hopeful Flowers project; we are also participating in two Mystery quilt groups. As they are mysteries, I (Teri) can't say much, but you can join the respective Facebook groups to see what has already begun. And here are just a few tiny hints.
Button fun and a few of the threads we will be offering: lovely hand-dyed pearl cotton by Painters Threads, and Kreinik metallic braid.
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If you did not receive our newsletter, "Are You Ready to Stitch Along?", click here.
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Which brings us to tools: "these are a few of our favorite things" that we have found helpful in our stitching projects, all of which we used in preparing these projects for you, and all of which can be found in our website store.
Martelli Light Box
The Martelli Light Box is perfectly portable, with bright LED lights beneath plexiglass and a reversible cutting mat, with measured markings on one side and solid on the other. It is lightweight and has suction cups so that it will stay in place as you work. It will be perfect for taking with you to classes (thinking optimistically here), but it is also easy to move around your studio if you need to. Mine lives on my ironing board, readily accessible for all my tracing needs.
We thought we'd show you a couple of examples of using the lightbox, including the obvious tracing of patterns or lines for embroidery.
Here, the pattern is pictured with a piece of wool on top. You can see that it is bright enough to trace through that heavy fabric, if you chose. (We actually traced it onto PressN'Seal for that embroidery, but this shows you how bright the light is.)
I laid my Harvest Basket pattern on the light box and then lined the basket up with the pattern to help me place my grapes.
When I made this block, I used the light box both to trace the circles for the spiral trellis stitch, and to trace the tiny inked vines. To see the block, click here.
And indeed, Kara traced the stems for embroidery on the Hopeful Flowers blocks!
Martelli Tweezers
Another favorite tool of ours also happens to be made by Martelli. We love their tweezers, and use them often. They come in two styles: Ergonomic and Pin Point. I use both, and can't say that I have a favorite. Both are pointy and both are comfortable.
The tweezers are perfect for removing PressN'Seal wrap that we mark for embroidery. This technique is especially useful when stitching lettering. We also find them incredibly helpful when working with wired ribbon, making flowers or leaves.
Needles
Milliners needles are essential for many embroidery stitches. Any wrapped stitches will be SO much easier to create and manipulate with this kind of needle, because the eye is the same size as the shaft of the needle. So when making a knot, for example, pulling the needle through those wraps of thread is much easier when a larger eye isn't hanging up as you tug. So when creating a bullion, drizzle, or cast-on stitch, you can imagine how much easier it would be. The first time I made a bullion, I was using a chenille and thought I would never make that stitch again. Now, it is one of my favorites—IF I use a milliners needle!
Probably our favorite go-to embroidery needle is the chenille needle, because it has a larger, flat eye—making it perfect for threading larger threads like heavy pearl cottons, or silk ribbons. I am especially "needle threading challenged," so a big eye makes me a happy stitcher.
These are but a few of our favorite tools. What would you add to the list?
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