This morning, I randomly drew the winner of the give-away, so I will announce that lucky person below, and then I’ll share a General Update on Things.

Oooooh, including new stock arriving soon, speaking of beautiful books…

First thing this morning in the wee hours, I tied up the give-away for Richly Stitched Landscape Embroidery and, using a random number generator, drew the winner:

Deborah Jesseman!

Yay! Deborah, you’ll receive that digital copy via email. I will reach out to you shortly with details!

Bouquet Letters by Elisabetta Sforza

Yes, of course I’m carrying Elisabetta’s beautiful new book, Bouquet Letters.

And yes, of course, it was held up in customs briefly. It should arrive this week. I expect it as soon as today, I hope!

This is another gorgeous monogram alphabet book by Elisabetta. The book is presented in both Italian and English, and I will review it in detail once it’s here.

I carry all of Elisabetta’s popular books in my shop, and I’m so happy to add Bouquet Letters, so you’ll see all of them in stock soon!

Stitch Snippet Kits Restocked!

We’ve restocked some of our most popular stitch-along kits – Cotton Quartet and Bee-Jeweled Pin Cushion – and they’re in the shop as we speak!

These kits belong to the Stitch Snippet Stitch-Along series that we have hosted over the past many years here on Needle ‘n Thread. You can find the stitch-along for Cotton Quartet here. You’ll see all the instructions detailed there, in chronological order as the stitch-along unfolded.

And you can find the stitch-along for Bee-Jeweled Pin Cushion here.

You’ll find a limited number of both of these kits available in the shop here.

The Thumb!

I haven’t “unpacked” my thumb yet – can’t do that till Friday – but the surgery seems to have done the trick! Thanks for all your good wishes!

I’m doing the hunt-and-peck four-finger typing thing. It’s highly inefficient. LOL!

Oh my word, I can’t wait to get back to efficient and comfortable stitching!

I leave tomorrow (May 19th) for the procedure down in Oklahoma City, and I am determined to queue up enough blog posts to get me through ten days of recovery without having to type for extended periods of time.

In the spirit of the best laid schemes of mice and men, I have not finished this maniturgium project as of Monday, May 18th at 9:00 AM. I sorely wanted to, but “sorely” is the operative word. I’ve been working on it in every spare moment at home, but my hand just can’t keep up the pace.

I’ll show you how far I got on the project before surgery, and I’ll show you my stitching set-up at home. It’s worked pretty well so far. At the end of this article, there’s a chronological list of all the previous articles on this project, too, in case you want to learn more about it.

When last we visited this project, I still had the U and the M to stitch on the lettering.

Without a lot of time to work in the studio, I transported the whole project home, along with frames, hoops, tools, threads and possible threads, a table top stand to hold my frame or hoop while stitching, a light, a stand magnifier… all the stuff that I didn’t really want to take home, because I don’t have a lot of room for a dedicated stitching area at home, but I couldn’t finish the project without all of the above.

After I finished U and M, I had to go back to Duc…

…because I didn’t have the “glints” or “drips” in the blue shading on these letters. I wrote about this approach here, when I tested the concept and liked it.

I had to return to “Duc” and work those stitches in.

The difficulty with going back on something like this is that you risk losing uniformity in the stitching or technique, and I know I definitely did. These “glints” or drips are larger or smaller on some letters compared to others. In the whole scheme of the piece, is it noticeable? I don’t think so – not enough to be troubled by it.

Once I finished “Duc” (the drops and outlining with the silver, which I wrote about here), I worked the cross in the center of the lettering.

I regret the design choice I made on this cross. It caused me problems. I didn’t get the transfer just right on it, so I had to do some touch ups with pencil right before stitching. And then I realized I really didn’t have a choice – I had to cover a complete framed outline around the cross itself, to cover up the mistake I made on the transfer.

I wish I had just designed a very simple cross with no frame or outline around it.

C’est la vie!

Also, I chose a medium blue for the cross and decided to stitch it solid. The cross, then, is long and short stitch in one shade (a medium) of the blue silks I used. I wish I had chosen the darkest or the second-to-darkest shade. But… c’est la vie! There’s no changing it now!

To frame the cross (and cover up the transfer error), I worked a couched silver outline along the outermost design line using two silver wires, and then I filled in the rest of the frame area with one strand of the lightest blue silk in stem stitch.

I wanted the “frame” to be not-so-noticeable, because it would fatten the cross too much. I think I achieved that, but I do regret that whole design decision of the “frame” around the cross. I would have preferred a darker solid blue cross with a simple outline of silver right around its edge.

Here’s the finished lettering and cross.

Did the “deep water” plan come across? I think so. Could I have done some things differently? Yes. Do I dislike it? No. I like it pretty well – which is better than not liking it at all! LOL!

I do love the colors of blue…

But then… there’s my fish. My not-so-biblical biblical fish.

Originally, I had visions of making this fishy fellow into a mosaic-looking fish, like an old Roman mosaic.

But as time wore on and the deadline loomed and the hand got worse, I just couldn’t take the time to plan that out and get my head around how to turn this small of an fish into a mosaic made with embroidery.

So I pulled threads (specifically, Soie de Paris for the fish, because I want him to be a bit shiny) and started stitching, and so far, this is what I’ve ended up with.

“Rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim…” kept coming to mind as I embroidered the fish. I may have to play up those little dotted bits, by adding in some of the darker coral – just a touch – to enhance them and make them more visible.

The fish took a gazillion years longer than I wanted him to. Stitching with Soie de Paris can be frustrating, and even more so when you’re working with multiple threads in the needle at once.

If you’re not familiar with Soie de Paris, I talk about it in several articles on the website, but perhaps these articles on working with filament silk would be the most informative:

Working with Soie de Paris

Silk Hand Embroidery Thread 101: Twisted Filament Silk

Here he is again, with some of the lettering in the background.

It’s a good thing he’s such a stylized fish, because there is no explanation otherwise for the way he’s stitched. It makes no sense in the fish world!

Still, I kinda like him!

I can’t wait to finish his eye and the rest of his head. I think I will add a glint to that eye.

Here, you can see him a bit better in context with the lettering. He is quite a distance from the lettering – the cloth itself is a strip about 40″ long and 3″ wide when finished. The cross is in the center of the strip, with the words spaced equally on each side of it. And then down at the ends of the strip, there’s a fish on each side.

In retrospect, I wish I had put a little more design into the ends of the strip. I would have liked to adorn the fish area with waves or something. Or maybe I should have made the fish a bit more symbolic and had them hugging a cross or a cross & anchor.

Alas… time, time, time, time, time!

This is my stitching set-up at home for this project. I have a small “standing desk” (I can raise it and stand, or lower it and sit) in front of the west-facing window in my very small (8.5′ x 10′) guest closet room. When I sit on that stool, my back is literally against the twin bed, which is, in turn, against the opposite wall. So it’s a cozy little space, but it has good light and at least it’s a space!

I have a fish and a half to finish, and the maniturgium will be done. Then, it’s just a matter of damp stretching, then sewing up (like a long tube), and delivering.

I’ll let you know how it goes!

Previous Articles on this Project

If you’d like to follow this project from the beginning, here are all the articles about it, listed in chronological order:

Books, Fish, & News – first mention of the project and discussion of design ideas

Doodling & Designing

Battling the Indecision of Decision Making – settling on colors, etc.

“Duc” is Done & Deep

Drippy Water on Embroidered Lettering

Adding a Touch of Silver

UM – it’s All That’s Left (on the lettering)

Yes, there are several embroidery books coming out in 2026 that I think are worth noting and highly desirable. I’ve already got a few on the calendar for review.

But this book – THIS book! – ticks all my little-embroidery-lovin’-heart’s boxes, on several levels. There is so much about it that is instructive – also on several levels – and so much about it that’s just downright charming.

Couple these points with the fact that it presents an approach to embroidery that can be highly customized into deeply personal and unique embroidery works, and I think you’ll understand why, even this early in the year, I think it is most likely my Embroidery Book of 2026 – and perhaps even beyond 2026. I suspect I will use it as a reference, project, practice, and inspirational book well beyond this year.

Please allow me to show you, up close, Cassandra Dias’s Richly Stitched Landscape Embroidery, published by C&T Publishing, and available worldwide now. Are you familiar with Cassandra’s work? If not, pop by her Instagram channel! You will be mesmerized by her landscapes.

Stick with me through the review, and at the end, you’ll have the opportunity to win your very own digital copy of the book, courtesy of C&T Publishing.

The book is about exactly what it promises in the title, richly stitched landscapes, and how to accomplish them.

Cassandra is obviously an artist in her own right. Her skillful use of color, proportion, perspective, composition, movement, and even life come across in each of the little projects in this book.

In addition to her artistic skill, she certainly understands how to teach the concepts and techniques of her art to her reader, and in ways that are remarkably accessible. Whether you are a beginner or a skilled stitcher, you can do what she’s teaching you to do, because she knows how to teach you how to do it. And that’s a marvelous gift!

The book is logical in its approach – it makes sense and it is orderly. Here, you’ll find well-presented, good instruction.

And then…. and then… it’s just pretty. The projects are really, really pretty. I want to be in every spot depicted in these projects.

Alright, there’s my overly effusive intro. I can’t help it. I love this book!

What’s In It?

The whole point of the book is to present Cassandra’s methods for embroidering detailed, beautiful, realistic landscapes. They are not huge images – they are sometimes-vast scenes of visual beauty captured in a small frame. From rolling hills to jagged mountains, seasides to still lakes, vineyards to forests, you’ll find a variety of scenery types in the book, and you will learn how to stitch them.

You have but to learn and then adapt her methods to stitch your own view. But she gives you the step-by-step process, practice elements, and projects to lead you to the mastery of her approach.

Each project is designed to fit in a 3″ display hoop, but the author gives clear instructions (and percentages) for enlarging the designs if you want a bigger finished project. If you want, for example, a 4″ round landscape that will fit in a 4″ display hoop or display frame, she tells you how to accomplish that before you transfer the design.

The book begins with general concepts. First, there’s a section on tools and materials, including hand embroidery threads, tools, fabric; transfer tools; materials for finishing and display; and more.

Next, the author tackles notions of color and design. Though short, this is a fascinating section! She shows you how to work from a reference photo, to turn a snapshot into your embroidered scene – how to break the scene down into elements to stitch and how to plan your approach to stitching it. And she also takes you through the process of choosing colors to bring your scene to life.

Now, don’t worry! As you learn from the book, the author does not expect you to come up with scenes to stitch. She provides you with practice scenes.

Next, we move into Embroidery Techniques & Tips. Here, you’ll learn the basics: transferring your design, how to use the embroidery floss, how to set up your hoop or frame, the general concepts of thread painting, how to finish a hoop for display, and the like.

Following this, you’ll find a stitch library. The embroidery stitches are all presented with step by step photos. None of them are difficult, complicated stitches. They’re all simple stitches.

And then we move into the specific instructions for landscape embroidery, and I love, love, love what Cassandra has done here.

Before we start stitching whole scenes, she takes us step-by-step through how to stitch common elements of scenery, providing designs, materials, and step-by-step photo instructions for typical parts of scenery: the sky, clouds, hills, mountains, trees, grass, flowers and bush, calm water, waves, sand, rocks.

Taken individually, each of these is a great lesson in interpretation of natural element into embroidery. While she presents these elements each in their own little hoop, I could see laying them out on a strip or square of fabric and working them as a legit sampler. It would be challenging, instructive, and fun!

Finally, the projects! Cassandra gives us seven complete scenes to embroider, and they strike me as being arranged from less difficult to more challenging: a rolling hillside, a seagrass shore, a rocky seascape, a serene lagoon, a foothill lake, a vineyard valley, and a wooded trail.

If someone pinned me down and said, “Pick out your favorite,” it would be practically impossible. The Foothill Lake is exquisite. The reflection of the water, the billowing clouds in the sky with the rolling hills before them, the trees and sky reflecting in the water… it’s hard to believe all of this is presented in such detail, so vivid, so real – with thread – in 3″ of space!

Be still, my heart!

But that vineyard valley makes my heart sing. And the serene lagoon, the seashores, the… the… I can’t pick. Each scene is lovely.

If I had to pick one that resonates with where I live, I know you won’t believe me, but it would be the rolling hillside. (You think Kansas is flat, don’t you?) It’s not – and that little hoop captures the typical hills in the area I live in, and the big sky that mesmerizes with its ever-changing sky-scape.

(But – shhhhh! don’t tell Kansas I said this: I dream of living above that foothill lake or on that rocky seashore!)

With each project, you’ll find all the information you need to stitch the scene.

The designs are located in the back of the book, where you’ll also find a QR code for an electronic version of all the patterns. This makes it easy to enlarge them and print them if you wish.

There is a materials and tools list with each project. The materials list includes the DMC thread list. On some of these scenes, there are a lot of colors employed! And an others, not as many, but still quite a few. For example, the Rolling Hillside uses 21 colors of DMC thread. The forest path? 58! With this type of thread painting, the extensive use of color is what makes it so realistic.

And then you will find the step-by-step photo instructions for building the scene with embroidery. Every little element unfolds before your eyes, so that you can see how it’s done and have the confidence to do it yourself.

Pros and Cons

All pros, no cons.

This is a fabulous book – it’s instructional and inspirational. I want really badly to work through every project in it. Right Now! I want really badly to have little embroidered landscapes peppering my gallery wall! Right Now!

Where to Find It

You can find Richly Stitched Landscape Embroidery: Mastering Thread Painted Scenes by Cassandra Dias available through Amazon now – it’s been out for a short ten days! It’s right here at the top of my Needlework Book Recommendations list.

Get it! And let’s stitch some landscapes!

The link to my Needlework Recommendations List on Amazon is an affiliate link, which means that Needle ‘n Thread may receive a small commission for items purchased through that link, at no extra expense to you. Thanks!

Give-Away!

This give-away has ended. Thanks to all who participated!

Courtesy of C&T Publishing, I’m giving away a digital copy of Richly Stitched Landscape Embroidery to one lucky randomly drawn winner!

If you’d like to join in on the give-away, please leave a comment below on this blog post. You can follow this link to the comment form, answering the following question:

What’s your favorite landscape? Are you a mountains person? Seaside? Open skies and rolling hills? Prairies and plains? Forests and streams? A lake lover? Rugged cliffs with salty spray, or soft, sunny, sultry tropics? What type of ideal scenic setting do you escape to in your favorite daydreams, that would want to stitch?

Leave your answer below by 5:00 AM Central Daylight Time, Wednesday, May 27th, and I’ll randomly draw for, and announce, a winner that morning. Make sure that you leave a recognizable name in the “name” line on the comment form, and please double check your email so that I can contact you directly.

Entries left anywhere else besides this blog post are ineligible. Your comment may not appear immediately because all comments left on Needle ‘n Thread are moderated before they are published.

Oh my Word. Wow! Wool can be a Whopping & Weighty subject here, because it’s come up a lot over the past 20 years!

To keep things a little simpler, I’m just going to highlight key wooly articles – some that have to do with stitching with wool threads, some that have to do with embroidered wool (you’ll see what I mean), and some that have to do with other (kind of like the miscellaneous junk drawer in my kitchen).

So, come, come! Let’s talk about wool! As Alfred Doolittle would say, I’m Willing to tell you! I’m Wanting to tell you! I’m Waiting to tell you! … all about wool.

First, we’ll burrow deep into the archives and resurrect this first full wool-related project that was ever featured on the blog. In fact, this is one of the earliest step-by-step development projects that I wrote about!

The Crewel Rooster was an exploration in stitching with different types of wool thread that I had on hand at the time I started the project.

As a project, the poor fellow wasn’t planned out particularly well or anything. He was just doodled and cobbled together.

I explored stitches and threads while I worked him. And I learned to like him by the time he was finished. I suppose other people must have liked him, too, because he is the most “stolen” image from my website. He shows up on all kinds of AI-generated needlework book covers on places like Amazon.

But at least the rooster got finished – unlike this Pomegranate Corners project that I started working on and blogging about, but never finished.

Things like that happen sometimes. I can’t remember what exactly de-railed that project, but I think it was a combination of the design and the thread choice.

A couple good thing came out of it, though – this satin stitched dot tutorial is one, and this free embroidery pattern is another. So that’s something!

I know this is a shameless plug, but I feel like I need to vindicate myself. I have finished other wool projects, after all!

This Wildflowers in Wool project, for example, was developed into an embroidery kit that we carry regularly here in the shop.

If you’ve never stitched with wool and you want a beginner-friendly project that comes with everything you need – beautiful preprinted linen twill, full skeins of all the wool threads, needles and printed instructions – then this is the project for you! It’ll give you a good feel for working with wool, and leave you with a very pretty finished piece.

Now, if you want to stitch wool – as in, stitch wool, not stitch with wool or stitch on wool – over the years, I’ve touched on a couple ways to do that.

Perhaps the most notable and more realistic way I’ve stitched a wooly coat on a lamb was on this Agnus Dei project.

Ironically, it’s embroidered with silk, not wool.

In this article, I explained how I embroidered the wool. Now, keep in mind, this really was Early Days on Needle ‘n Thread. The photos aren’t that great, and the explanation is all text, not step-by-step photos.

Funny how things have morphed.

Embroidered wool doesn’t have to be complicated, though. On these tiny little things – from Lavender Honey & Other Little Things, which was my first e-book way back in the archives – I used chunky French knots for lamb’s wool.

And then there’s Other – more specifically, embroidering on wool.

Here on the blog, you’ll find a lot of projects that involve wool felt in some way or another, either as a ground cloth or as fabric used in finishing.

You’ll also find felted wool projects, like these embroidered mittens that I made from knitted wool mittens that I felted in the washer and then embroidered.

You’ll also find embroidery on felted objects, like these Easter eggs and these felted wool hearts.

And you can find an article here on tips for stitching on 3-D felted objects.

Those aren’t deep in the archives, in fact – they’re just over a year old!

And that, my friends, is W in the ABC Archives series here on Needle ‘n Thread! If you want to read other articles in this series, you’ll find the ABC Archives Index available here.

And then I search all over my site looking for an answer, too, because I can’t remember whether I’ve written about it or not.

Such was the case with the topic of transferring embroidery designs with carbon paper (or similar products).

I have touched on this topic before here and there (specifically, a million years ago, I used this method to transfer the design on this project), but I’ve not jumped head-first into it because I don’t often use carbon methods and materials for transferring designs.

Still, I have the tools and materials for this approach for the occasional times I do use it, so let’s talk about the process, the pros and cons, how it’s done, types of transfer mediums out there for this approach, and so forth.

I’m pretty sure this will comprise two (or more) blog posts to cover the topic thoroughly. But at least by then I’ll be able to say, “Oh yes. I’ve written about that, and you can find it here!”

The carbon transfer process harkens back to the days of The Carbon Copy. Carbon paper has been around since the early 1800’s, and carbon copies enjoyed their heyday in the Age of the Typewriter. Using carbon paper was an efficient way of making duplicate copies.

In arts and crafts and sewing, carbon copy methods work more or less the same way as carbon paper in a typewriter, except your hand and an implement of some sort – a ballpoint pen, a stylus – takes the place of the typewriter.

For the carbon transfer process in sewing applications, you place your fabric on a hard surface, you place a sheet of carbon transfer paper on top of the fabric, carbon-side down, and then you place the pattern on top of the carbon paper. It is helpful to somehow secure all layers so they don’t shift while you’re making your copy. I generally use bits of tape for securing.

You can see the layers for the carbon transfer process in the first photo above.

Next, you draw over the lines of your design, applying enough pressure to get the carbon to transfer to the fabric.

So that’s the concept, and it sounds pretty easy, and it does work in many cases. But there are extenuating circumstances that can make this transfer process a little more difficult that you’d think.

For example, not all carbon transfer mediums behave equally.

Additionally, the fabric you’re working on can affect the transfer.

And then there’s the pressure you have to exert – depending on the carbon product, the paper your design is printed or drawn on, the fabric you’re using, and so forth. If you have to exert a lot of pressure to get your transfer, it can often be exhausting.

Because of this latter point especially, I would say that it’s not always the easiest and most “comfortable” way of transferring. But, again, it depends on factors.

And many times, it works. And even if it doesn’t work as well as you’d like, you can take measures to make the transfer better.

For this sample that I’m working through here, I’m using “dressmaker’s carbon” in a medium gray color.

Mostly, dressmaker’s carbon is not used to transfer detailed designs. It’s used to transfer the (larger) lines of a sewing pattern onto fabric, to give cutting guides, but not really to supply a detailed design line for meticulous hand stitching.

But it’s the most common transfer medium you’ll find in needlework / sewing-related stores.

You can see the impression of the transfer on the back of the carbon above – and you’d think it would have made a pretty good transfer. But in fact, it didn’t really come out that clear.

I went back over the design with a mechanical pencil to touch it up, and now it’s much clearer and would make a suitable guide for embroidering.

The fabric I’m working on here is a light-to-medium weight, closely woven natural-colored linen with a smooth “hand” or fabric surface.

In this case, this particular dressmaker’s carbon worked, but taken on its own, it didn’t work great. It needed the help of the mechanical pencil, making the process one step more complicated.

I know what you’re thinking – and I thought the same thing!

I thought, The color of the fabric coupled with the grayish tone of this particular dressmaker’s carbon doesn’t work well. I bet it would work better on white fabric than on natural!

Well. That’s on medium weight white linen.

Not too satisfactory.

It still required the use of the mechanical pencil – even more so, in fact, than with the natural fabric.

Why?

No idea.

But that’s the way it worked.

There are different brands and types of dressmaker’s carbon, and it comes in different colors – white, yellow, red, blue, and grey are common colors for dressmaker’s carbon.

Dressmaker’s carbon can be used for embroidery design transfer, but it is not ideal. As mentioned, it isn’t really meant for transferring the detailed designs which are often typical for hand embroidery.

Those are a couple examples of playing around with only one kind and one color of dressmaker’s carbon, just to give you an overview of how carbon transfers work.

But wait! There’s more!

There are other options for this type of transfer technique, so we’re going to explore the subject further. To this end, I pulled out a nice variety of linens in various weights, in both white and natural – and even in black – to play with the process.

Coming up, I’ll share some tips, pros & cons, suggestions & alternatives as we further explore the topic of using carbon transfer techniques for detailed hand embroidery designs!

Coming Up!

Later this week, I’ll be reviewing a new embroidery book on the market, and I’ll be hosting a give-away for a digital copy of that book. Look for that on Friday!

On Wednesday, we’ll talk about the Letter we Love.

Oh what is the letter we love? What sound are we extra-fond of?
Without any trouble, you know it’s a W when you hear W-W-W-W!

(Couldn’t resist a little Ernie & Bert…)

If you want to dive down a rabbit hole or two this weekend and explore some interesting bits of embroidery from the past, I’ve got two terrific resources for you.

But be warned!

Rabbit holes are notoriously captivating. And once you’re in… you’re in!

Let’s start with a very famous museum with very notable textile holdings – specifically, the V&A in London (the Victoria & Albert Museum).

Welcome to the V&A – virtually – and specifically, to the Embroidery Collections on the V&A website.

I won’t go into a huge detail. I’ll just tell you this: the collections section on the website has been reformatted, it is deliciously easy to browse different types and eras of embroidery and read about them, view the holdings, and really enjoy the collections!

Go! What are you waiting for?!

Another Coronation Dress to Explore

A couple weeks ago, we chatted about Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation dress, and I directed you to the Royal Collection Trust website to view an article on the dress (with some great photos) and to perhaps sign up – if interested – for a lecture on the dress.

Today, let’s step back farther in history to Queen Elizabeth II’s great-grandmother, Queen Alexandra, the Danish princess who became Queen Consort when she married Edward VII in 1863.

This fabulous article on The Court Jeweller website highlights Alexandra’s coronation dress, and there are some stunning images of it that are worth seeing, if you’re not familiar with it.

The latter half of the 1800’s through the beginning of the 1900’s is such a fascinating period of history. There was a lot going on, everywhere – positive and negative. It’s an engrossing era to explore, both in history in general, and in textile arts.

I mean, if you get into that kind of stuff.

Which I do.

I’m kind of nerdy that way.

Have a lovely weekend!

Oh hey! Next week this time, I’ll be posting a book review and a give-away! Keep an eye out for it!

I would say that, among the fluffy, dimensional embroidery stitches out there, Turkey Work (also called “Ghiordes knot stitch”) is probably the most well-known.

But there are other ways to create a fluffy surface on your embroidery projects! Today, as we continue the ABC Archive Series, I’m highlighting two more stitches that can achieve very similar results to Turkey Work: Velvet Stitch and Victorian Tufting.

Taken on their own, randomly stitched in strips or blobs, I don’t really find the fluffy dimensional stitches like Turkey work, velvet stitch, or Victorian tufting all that alluring.

But when they are used to a purpose, fluffy stitches just can’t be beat! You need a beard for Santa? Try Turkey work or velvet stitch! You want to give him a soft, dense coat? Try Victorian tufting!

Used in projects, they’re all great stitches. Used on a sampler, they lose their effect.

Of course, that’s just my opinion… I suppose you could always try them on a sampler! And then you can let me know if I’m wrong!

In any case, if you’d like to give velvet stitch a try, you’ll find a step-by-step tutorial for velvet stitch here.

And if you’d like to give Victorian tufting a try (that’s the striped sample in the photo above), you’ll find a step-by-step tutorial for Victorian tufting here.

Of the two, I’m rather fond of Victorian tufting. It’s nice and dense. It reminds me of a soft, fluffy carpet.

Looking for More?

You can find other articles in the ABC Archive series listed here in the ABC Archive Index! It’s been such a fun series to put together, and I hope you’re enjoying it, too!

If you’re not familiar with our stitch-alongs on Needle ‘n Thread, I’ll also share some details about them below, so you can know what to expect.

When we first started doing these stitch-alongs – which I called Stitch Snippets – we were trying to fit in four a year. That become unmanageable. Now, we do two a year, one of which is usually a Christmas ornament. The other comes out somewhere in late spring or early summer. This year, it will be High Summer before we get started, I’m afraid.

But that’s appropriate because….

…it’s blackberry season!

Whether they’re used in illuminated borders highlighted with gold leaf, or as motifs in the illustrations of children’s books (Brambly Hedge, anyone?), whether painted or molded on tiles and reliefs of stone, or trailing up tapers of beeswax, or woven into linen damask – I find berries in art to be utterly charming.

For this stitch-along, we’ll be embroidering with thread and beads to produce a delicate, sweet design highlighting the blackberry. The goal is to demonstrate methods to produce semi-realistic embroidered blackberries, blossoms, and brambles, so that you can take these techniques and apply them to other projects along your embroidery journey.

Working out a design for any project takes a little doing. The process usually starts with doodling, which turns into creating a vector design for the project, and then more doodling with colors in a rather loose fashion.

On bigger projects, I might start with a design that’s been drawn and maybe even painted (watercolored), in a more formal way. But for these small projects, I like using Prismacolors (colored pencils) for quick mock-ups on a printed version of the line drawing of the embroidery pattern.

Sometimes, the outcome might look a little messy and even childish in a sense (see above!), but it gives us a general idea of where to go with colors when stitching samples.

For the stitch-alongs, we want something small that can be accomplished in a relatively short time.

We want embroidery techniques that are accessible and not overwhelming – whether you’re a beginner or beyond.

We need to make sure we have a supply line for kitting the project, and we explore the most economical options, so that the kits are affordable.

We test the design, we make innumerable tweaks, test the tweaks, make decisions, test those decisions, and on and on. It’s a process!

But we go through the process because I don’t want to produce something that will just “do.” I want to produce something that fits the image I had in mind, that is useful for accomplishing some learning goals, and that comes to a satisfactory, beautiful finish.

So the design we’ve developed for the upcoming stitch-along is this small wreath of blackberries, blossoms, and brambles. Although the close-up images might make the design look huge, it fits within a 5″ hoop.

At this point, the design is called Blackberries, Blossoms, & Brambles… even if it does sound a bit like an exclamation of some sort.

“Blackberries, blossoms, and brambles! Where in tarnation have I put my spectacles?!”

or, to borrow from our neighbor Dorothy and her friends: “Blackberries, blossoms, and brambles! Oh my!”

The name may change.

How Does a Stitch-Along Work?

A stitch-along is basically the step-by-step development of the embroidery project presented here on the website, in such a way that you can stitch it, too. During the course of a stitch-along, I publish on the blog everything you need to know to stitch the project.

I use photos and diagrams to illustrate techniques, I give you the design and materials lists, and I offer tips and troubleshooting along the way, so that you can successfully stitch the same thing I’m stitching.

With each stitch-along, we offer a complete materials kit so that you have all the same supplies I used for stitching the sample. This way, you don’t have to source supplies from various places and it saves you time and money. But we also supply a materials list, in case you can’t get, or don’t want, a kit.

Stitch-alongs are self-paced. You aren’t obliged to keep up with the publishing schedule of the lessons. I provide an index for every project, where you can find a chronological list of each lesson to follow along at your own pace. That way, if Life intervenes, no problem! You can come back to the blog and access the lessons through the project index.

In fact, you can find the indexes for all of the previous stitch-alongs on Needle ‘n Thread listed here, under Tips & Techniques, in the top section of “Hand Embroidery Lessons & Step-by-Step Projects” list. If you take a look at some of those, it will give you a good idea of what to expect with this one.

When planning a stitch-along, I develop the “teachable points” of the project: techniques that you can add to your own embroidery repertoire, that help you develop your embroidery skills, or that allow you to try something new and interesting that you might not have done before.

So you might join in on the stitch-along to learn something, but you also might just join in because you like the design, you want a project to work, you enjoy embroidering, or whatever reason you have! “Just for the fun of it” is a good enough reason – and probably the best reason!

Along with the lessons that are posted here on the blog in the normal blog format, members of the Needle ‘n Thread community on Patreon have the extra advantage of downloadable PDFs for each lesson, formatted for easy printing or viewing on a mobile device, that they can save to their computers or devices for use now or in the future. When possible, I also include videos for some membership levels. (Not every stitch-along involves video, though, just so you know!) Members also enjoy early shopping events, before the kits are released on the website.

Keep an Eye Out!

We don’t have an exact launch date for this stitch-along, but I suspect the kits won’t be available until close to the end of June. This means the stitch-along will likely start at the beginning of July.

I’ll keep you informed, and once we know, I’ll let you know when the kits will be available!

Also Coming Up!

We’re working on other exciting things behind the scenes, too!

In addition to stitching things, writing up instructions for things, working on shop inventory, and other daily work, we’ve got a couple fabulous book reviews coming up – one of which includes a give-away. Can’t wait to share these new books with you!

We’re also going to chat a little about design transfer processes, and we are going to re-visit questions concerning long and short stitch.

Next week, I have surgery scheduled for my trigger thumb on my right hand, so I’ll be down in Oklahoma mid-week for that. I have some blog posts lined up for you while I’m gone for that (two days, mid-week) and during recovery (which I hope happens very quickly). Please keep your fingers (and thumb) crossed for me!

Hope your week is off to a grand old start! Happy Monday!

These delectable morsels of 100% pure soft, supple, enticingly aromatic beeswax are ideal for strengthening thread in various embroidery and sewing applications. We use all cap wax (no brood comb or the like) that’s been quadruple filtered.

It is not a brittle beeswax – it doesn’t flake and break off like the pale yellow or white cakes you buy on the notion aisle at a sewing or craft store. You know it’s good stuff because it smells divine, it feels wonderful, and it’s dense but softens beautifully for applying to thread.

In hand embroidery, beeswax is used to coat the thread used to apply goldwork wires, spangles, bullions, and the like. Beeswax strengthens the thread against the abrasive metal. It’s also great for strengthening thread for sewing down beads.

And – wonder of wonders! – if you’ve ever lost a button because of broken thread, you will understand the sheer magnificence of beeswax-coated threads for sewing on buttons. Coat buttons especially benefit from beeswax as a strengthener.

We make the Beeswax Petites at my house, in my garage-gone-workspace. You might remember this space. It used to be “the studio” once upon a time. It was the first expansion space of Needle ‘n Thread, when I moved my “studio” from my bedroom to the remodeled workspace in the garage.

I grew out of the garage space eventually. From there, I rented this duplex apartment, just catty-corner from my house on the same street.

After about four-ish years in that space – during which time, I took on Anna, my full-time accomplice – we outgrew it and moved into our commercial space in the little historic downtown of St. Marys, Kansas, which I showed you here. (The space has developed a bit since then, but the essentials are the same!)

That’s where we are now and likely will be for a while.

The Beeswax Petites bring us almost full-circle in our studio growth and expansion. Why? Because we make them, as mentioned, in my former studio, and they have become an important part of our work in the present studio.

We use Beeswax Petites all the time! We use them in kits (like Plique á Jour) and we use them for our own embroidery work.

On this altar cover that we finished back in 2023, we used them right and left!

We use them on every goldwork project, and we often use them for bead embroidery as well.

The Blue Shelf

One of my Favorite focal points in the Studio is a very strange and spontaneous purchase I made off Facebook Marketplace last year: this Blue Shelf.

It’s strange because everything in the studio is white or a light, natural wood. Any color in the room is supplied by fabric, embroideries, the gallery wall, and the like. But definitely not by the furniture … until The Blue Shelf arrived, that is.

The Blue Shelf is controversial. Just ask Anna.

Still, I like it.

When we are in Beeswax Production Mode, with the warmer set up and filled with wax and all the beeswax stuff out, I take the opportunity to make a variety of candles, too. These, I use for gifts throughout the year. We also use them in the Studio (especially in winter). And I use them at home, too. I enjoy burning a good beeswax candle! Not only is the smell sumptuous, but the candle itself lasts much longer than most standard candles today, because beeswax has a higher melting point and is significantly denser than other currently popular waxes.

After a bout of Beeswax-Petite-Making, there’s nothing I like better than populating The Blue Shelf with whatever candles happen to materialize at the same time. This year, there have been many candles, primarily because I’m working from home, anyway. I can do quick candle pours between computer work and dad care. It works out well!

That was a long, meandering journey to get to the point – but here’s the latest batch on The Blue Shelf.

If nothing else, The Blue Shelf serves my candle-making efforts well. The colors complement each other deliciously, and it gives the studio a very cheerful, warm, and eye-catching splash of color.

I just finished this small batch of candles at home, and they are patiently awaiting their deliverance to The Blue Shelf. I can’t wait to add them to the collection! There’s a certain feeling of satisfaction when the Shelf is abundantly full.

And that, my friends, is another glance behind the Needle ‘n Thread scenes. While we don’t make wax products in the current studio, we still enjoy them in the studio. They’re beautiful to see on the Shelf, and it’s just lovely to have a candle or two burning during our work hours.

I hope you a lovely weekend! And a very Happy Mother’s Day to all you Moms out there!

Well, technically, we never did. Not that I have anything at all against embroidered unicorns. But I’ve never embroidered one myself.

I have, however, created a series of small projects that are an appreciative nod to some of my favorite works of textile art from the Middle Ages – the Lady & the Unicorn tapestries of Cluny.

And so, with a little bit of a stretch as we continue the ABC Archives series, I’m going to say that U is for Unicorn.

Way back in 2018, I designed a set of “tapestry smalls” worked on silk gauze – a very fine, light even-weave mesh that mimics needlepoint mono canvas but is much, much finer – and called them “A Thousand Flowers.” The original set of charts – which you can find here as a downloadable PDF – includes a dog, a cat, a bunny, and squirrels.

I love working small things, and these were no exception. They’re stitched with beautiful silk threads, and the resulting little miniatures can be finished in a variety of ways.

The deer (above) – which is a supplemental chart – I mounted in a pocket watch setting, using a Tom Holtz Idea-ology frame that I found at a craft store (I don’t think this particular one is made anymore).

This piece hangs in my cubbies at the studio. It is a huge conversation maker when people step close to see what it is.

I mounted the dog in a bevel tray with a brooch pin on the back – you know, for the medieval-tapestry-dog-loving person in your life!

The double squirrels, I finished into an ornament, and then I realized it would also make a great scissor fob.

There’s also a cat and a bunny version, which were finished in similar ways. They all went forth into the world as gifts.

In addition to the PDF downloads for these projects, we produced kits for them at the time, too. We still put together kits occasionally, so if you are interested and you want advanced notice of them, just drop me a line and let me know! We’ll notify you once we have them in stock again.

And that, my friends, is my roundabout U for the ABC Archives series. If you’d like to explore the rest of the articles in this series, you’ll find the ABC Archives Index here.

Hope you’re having a Wonderful Wednesday!