Embroidery Books from the Past

I've added a few older, second hand embroidery books to my collection in the last couple of weeks. I bought some vintage craft magazines too, which I will share in a separate post.

The book on the bottom of the stack is Anchor's '100 Embroidery Stitches'. A small but really useful book with clear diagrams.

Anchor is the name under which Coats sold, and still sell, their embroidery and craft threads. Originally there were two separate companies (Coats and Clark), but later they merged into one company. A lot of Anchor Embroidery books (on various subjects such as canvaswork and Spanish Blackwork) were published over the years. The copy I bought is probably similar to other editions they brought out. You can regularly find them on Ebay for just a few quid.

The DMC books (or rather: booklets) are very different in content. The one with the red cover has a good number of cross stitch designs of animals mostly. When I purchased it online I had mistaken it for an older DMC booklet, with border motifs and such from around Europe. So when the booklet arrived I was surprised to come across patterns of geese, ducklings and forest animals.

The insect repeat patterns are quite groovy though and I like the slightly kitschy stag too.

The other DMC booklet has an interesting variety of evenweave border designs. Both booklets do not have much information about the stitches and colours. You'd have to work straight from the pattern and photographed examples and just guess which colours to use. Or just choose your own which I prefer in most cases anyway. :)

P.S. A few things that I haven't got round to: putting some of my embroideries on sale in the shop and preparing a second blog post about the X and Plus Quilt (including a small tutorial). At the moment all of my sewing stuff and embroideries are packed up due to the rebuilding of the bath room so bear with me for a little longer! The whole house is covered in dust (it's EVERYWHERE) so I'm kind of glad my sewing supplies are safely packed away!

How to pull thread from a skein

I have a confession to make. Until last week I didn't really know how to pull floss from a skein. Usually I just pulled at the first loose end I'd find. Not noticing which end of the skein it was. Sometimes it was the right end and the thread could easily be pulled from the skein, often it was the wrong end and I would end up with a tangled mess.

The other day I thought it would be wise to try and find out if there was some logic to the whole process. It turned out the DMC skeins I was using do have a 'business end'... I felt a bit silly posting my 'aha' moment on Instagram but then it turned out I wasn't the only one. It's just one of those things no one ever talks about! Soon I started referring to the whole thing as #Flossgate and like with other 'gates' it needed further investigation!

I conducted a comparative 'thread-pulling' study of four different brands of embroidery floss I found in my stash: DMC, Sublime Stitching, Anchor and Cosmo. These are all six stranded flosses, but I must add the Anchor floss is rather old so possible today's skeins will give a different result.

Let's start with DMC: the business end is the side where the thread number is.

Anchor: the right side to pull the thread from is the side where label with the brand name is.

Sublime Stitching: it took me quite a while to find out that the beginning and the end of the thread where at the same side! It's the side where the number label is. You just need to gently pull both to find out which one comes loose from the skein more easily.

Finally Cosmo: as you can see in the photo the best way to pull thread from the skein is on the side where the brand label is.

I hope this study is helpful for some of you! Do let me know in the comments if you happen to know how this works with other brands. :)

p.s. find more of my Embroidery 'Aha' moments here.

More Tiny Hedgehog progress: Apple and Fluorescent Scarf

Normally I wouldn't post two times in a row about the same project but I made quite some progress with my Tiny Hedgehog this week and wanted to share it here on the blog.  As you may have noticed the Tiny Hedgehog now holds an Apple in his tiny paws (or paw as I still need to add the other paw) and I also added a rather fashionable scarf!

I'm fairly happy with how the Apple turned out, especially considering the tiny size of it. Actually the Apple is a bit tiny even for this Tiny Hedghehog! Luckily my Instagram friends came up with a solution for this oddity: either it's a Crabapple or the Tiny Hedgehog is actually a Giant Hedgehog holding a normal sized apple. :)

I think the scarf (it's an infinity scarf can you tell?) is a real eye catcher with the fluorescent accents. I was unsure when I added the yellow neon colour but now I'm happy I went for a less obvious choice of colour.

I have had these two Fluorescents Flosses (try saying that quickly 10 times in a row!) for a few years now and they are stored in my Floss Cabinet in a Ziploc bag with other less regular threads like DMC Jewel and Pearlescent effect floss. These fluorescent flosses are a bit easier to use than other metallic like threads (check Carina's Glitter Floss compare post!)  but, as you can see in the photo, they tend to split instantly. However.... I was able to do a pretty passable Satin Stitch with it so it was worth the extra 'trouble'.  :)  DMC Light Effect Fluorescent Floss is most commonly sold in packages with four other Fluorescent Colours. 

If you like my Furry Creatures in Stitches you might be interested in the online Embroidery class I"m launching later this year. Send me an e-mail (big red button on the right) if you want to be added to the special Furry Nice Mailing List. :) 

p.s. as you may remember I'm stitching my Hedgehog project for the &Stitches Finish-Along. There's still plenty of time to join in! 

Tiny Jackalope

This weekend I spent rather a lot of time with this tiny fella. He's based on this free pattern of mine from a couple of years back and over the weekend he magically evolved from a white bunny into a brown Jackalope. I had a lot of fun stitching the flowers and leaves around him and I definitely think these will return in a future pattern or two! Some of those were inspired by this pattern I recently shared and some of the inspiration probably came from the Stitched in Scandinavia book I reviewed last week.

I used some of my favourite shades of blue from the DMC six stranded flosses for the flowers: no 3810 and 775. And probably about eight different colours of brown, beige and cream shades for the Jackalope.  Everything was stitched with just one strand of floss and sometimes I even wished there was such a thing as half a strand of floss for the tiniest details!

Cool Colours

While I was browsing through the photos I made this year and stumbled upon this Polar Bear & floss pic. The cool palette suits the current weather conditions perfectly as we had our first snow of the season today. Much to the amusement of my kids (snowball fights) and the cat (watching snowflakes from her comfy and warm spot on the kitchen radiator).

I made the Polar Bear photo for the Scandinavian Issue of &Stitches (available here!) for our 'Colour by Numbers' feature, but we chose to use the other picture (the Danish Teacup you see in my header) I made. Anyway, the top one of the six-stranded flosses in this photo is a favourite of mine. No. 747 is one of the most wonderful icy blue colours DMC has to offer: a cool blue with a hint of mint... The floss in the middle is a subtle silvery grey colour (DMC 762) and the mid shade of blue is DMC 598.  

And if you are looking for a project to use these shades, check out this wonderful free 'woven' star pattern Carina posted on the &Stitches blog.

I have a winter-y freebie pattern on the &Stitches blog early next week.

Wishing you all a fun and crafty weekend! 

Experimental stitching and LIttle Tiger winner

The wonderful selection of floss I received from DMC Creative  has given my embroidery and design work a huge impulse this year. I think it helped and inspired me to refine my design style and embroidery techniques. 

Among the goodies I received there were also these bright colours:  

The label on the yellow and green floss says Fluorescent Effects. The light coloured floss in the middle is Glow in the dark floss. Now these are not colours or flosses that I would normally go for but at the same time I'm kind of drawn to them as well. I always like to try new things, so today I thought I would just go and try the 'crazy flosses' out on a free form embroidery type of thing. In a stroke of genius (ahem..) I chose this dark charcoal coloured cross hatch fabric. A perfect backdrop for the bright colours I think.

I have only just started but the first thing that really impressed me was how soft the Glow in the Dark floss feels. I have a set of other Glow in the Dark floss that feels hard and is difficult (read: near impossible) to make neat stitches with.  This particular floss feels more like Satin Floss (or the old DMC Rayon Floss) so it's a little silkier than your regular six strand floss. Even making French Knots was not a problem at all.  The Fluorescent flosses were equally easy to handle.

As far as I know these are the only colours available in the DMC Neon/Glow in the dark section of the catalogue and for my free form embroidery I really needed some more colour so I have added (bright) six stranded floss as well.  I will keep you up to date with the progress of this piece, unless it turns out not so great ;)

Thank you to all who left a comment on my most recent giveaway. I so enjoyed reading about your favourite tree ornaments. :)  Winner of the totally adorable Little Tiger pattern from Joey's Dreamgarden is commenter no.3 which is Em. Congratulations Em!  If you are looking for a cute and beautifully handmade gift a visit to Joey's shop is a must.

& thank you Joey for contributing to my 500th blog post celebration!