Tag: embroidery

Lacis Museum of Lace and Textiles

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Somehow I wasn’t so laden with lovely new fabrics after my tour of Berkeley that I couldn’t find the energy for my final stop, the Lacis Museum of Lace and Textiles. Really I should have gone earlier in the day, as it’s actually only about a fifteen minute walk from Stonemountain and Daughters but it is very conveniently located near Ashby BART station so my tired feet could escape back to SF relatively easily. Even more convenient considering how many extra bags of embroidery supplies I ended up with from here!

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Review: The Embroidery Stitch Bible

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Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links meaning if you make purchases from this blog, I get a small commission. However, any recommendations and opinions are my own. For more information, please click here. 

One of the great things about the spread of the Internet has been the increasing accessibility of information on even the most niche of hobbies. This is great news for crafters for very obvious reasons, but with a growing number of wonderful Youtube tutorials and online stitch tutorials, is there any place left for a hardbound stitch bible?

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Review: Temari Jiwari and Color Magic 手まり地割りと色のマジック

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Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links meaning if you purchase the book through these links, I receive a small commission to help keep running the blog. However, any recommendations and opinions in this review are my own. For more information, please click here. 

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For those of you not familiar with temari, they are the wonderful embroidered balls that are often covered in mindboggling geometric designs or traditional Japanese motifs, such as cranes or 菊 (kiku), the chrysanthemum, often considered the national flower of Japan.

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Britex Fabrics, San Francisco

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I’ve been to different places in the States several times over the years but so far, the West Coast has remained unexplored territory for me. When the opportunity came up to visit California, I obviously couldn’t resist going to find out whether there was anything on offer to rival some of the lovely places I saw in Boston on my last visit.

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America tends to do big, bold and grand very well and Britex Fabrics in San Francisco is no exception. It is a multi-storey bonanza of all things craft related and has one of the best collections of craft gadgets I’ve seen outside of Japan.

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Trials and Tribulations of Thread Shopping

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Although I still have ten thousands kits to work through and an unimaginable number of works in progress, after I finished my Ribbonwork Heart, I found myself hankering for some more ribbonwork but with no obvious next project in line.

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While I love working pre-made kits because you can just dive straight in and don’t have to worry about how it will look, I’ve been feeling more and more that I want to move to designing my own pieces and mixing techniques because, let’s face it, there is no project that is not improved by the inclusion of spangles.

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Review: Ribbonwork Embroidery: Techniques and Projects

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Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links meaning if you make purchases from this blog, I get a small commission. However, any recommendations and opinions are my own. For more information, please click here. 

Ribbonwork embroidery (or ribbon embroidery) is, rather unsurprisingly, the art of sewing with ribbons. This is often done in combination with embroidery floss and other materials. As well as being delightfully quick to work up, ribbon embroidery is excellent value in the effect versus effort department, with even the simplest of stitches looking very dramatic. Also, who couldn’t love something that involves getting to play with silk?

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I had the pleasure of taking a Royal School of Needlework Day Class with the author of Ribbonwork Embroidery, Sophie Long, over a year ago now. When I heard that she was going to be writing a book on ribbonwork embroidery, one of her specialisms, I was rather excited to say the least.

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RSN Day Class: Needlelace at the Fashion Museum

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As well as the more intensive embroidery qualifications, the Royal School of Needlework (RSN) runs regular day classes as a way for people to try new techniques or get an insight into what it is like to study with one of the world’s most prestigious hand embroidery schools. Occasionally, the RSN teams up with other organisations to put on special classes on either different themes or different skills.

Recently, the RSN ran a series of classes at the Fashion Museum in Bath, with designs based on items on exhibition there. I was lucky enough to be able to attend the Needlelace day class, stitching a small butterfly/dragonfly/questionable insect as inspired by a motif on an embroidered Elizabethan woman’s waistcoat.

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