Exhibition---Schoolgirl Embroidery from the Connecticut River Valley

I received an e-mail from the Director of Marketing at the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, Connecticut about their fall exhibition titled "With Needle and Brush: Schoolgirl Embroidery from the Connecticut River Valley." The exhibition will be held from October 2, 2010 through January 30, 2011.

This exhibition of approximately sixty embroideries, watercolor sketches, and portraits will draw extensively on works from private collections, many never before shown publicly.





More information and images can be found at http://www.florencegriswoldmuseum.org/exhibitions/2010/10Needle.html.

The Museum is located at 96 Lyme Street, Old Lyme, CT, exit 70 off I-95 and is open year round Tuesday through Saturday from 10am to 5pm and Sunday 1 to 5pm. Admission is $9 for adults, $8 for seniors, $7 for students, and free to children 12 years and under. For more information, visit the Museum’s web site www.FlorenceGriswoldMuseum.org or call 860-434-5542 x 111.

Book Review---Traditional Chinese Designs

I bought the book "Traditional Chinese Designs: Iron-on Transfer Patterns" by Barbara Christopher two months ago.

This book is published by Dover Publications and is one of their needlework series books. It is a paperback and contains 64 pages. Though the book is not a huge one, the designs in the book are excellent and the print is very clear. Some designs are very intricate and are challenging to embroider. This book is especially for people who hunt for a variety of designs for their embroidery projects.

This is the front cover of the book:




There are 24 design plates in total. The book is divided into three sections: stitch and color chart for each iron-on transfer plate, iron-on transfer plates, and the color images of the embroidered design plates. There is also a page dedicated to stitch details which shows how to stitch some common emboidery stitches.

The stitch and color chart section is very useful. Below is a stitch and color chart of a Peony design:



The same design printed as iron-on transfer:



The color photographs of the embroidered designs appear on the front and back inside covers.





The designs include traditional Chinese themes of flowers such as lotus, chrysanthemum, peony, etc. and animals and birds such as dragon, phoenix, lion, crane, etc.




There are border designs as well as small designs to embroider on hankies, napkins, and table mats.

Overall, this book is really worth your money.

Hope this review is helpful to you. Please feel free to post your comments.

Here is the link to buy the book:

Amazon USA

Long-and-Short Red Anemone Finished

I finished the long-and-short red anemone two weeks before. 

 (design source: Trish Burr's Long and Short Embroidery: A Collection of Flowers)

Here are the images:

 

Close-up image:

   

 And here is the progress of the Long-and-short Chinese lotus design. Yesterday's progress:

   

 

Today's progress:

   

Tomorrow I will review the book "Traditional Chinese Designs" by Barbara Christopher. See you tomorrow.

Traditional Chinese Designs: Lotus Flower

Yesterday, Elmsley Rose of elmsleyrose.blogspot.com wanted to see the pattern I am using for my current project. Hi Elmsley Rose, Here is the pattern you asked for. This pattern of a lotus flower appears on the cover image of the book Traditional Chinese Designs Iron-on Transfer Patterns.

The colors are different from the ones I use. I did not trace the entire design. I needed only the flower part, because I am going to applique the embroidered piece on my daughter's frock. I have slightly modified the design to suit my purpose.

 This book has many lovely designs where most of the designs are very intricate, in other words, challenging for an enthusiastic embroiderer.

Here is the link to the book if you are interested to buy:

At first, I selected a cotton fabric for this project, traced the design, selected the threads, and started stitching. Then only I found out that the fabric is not suitable for long-and-short stitch (usually cotton and linen are the best choices for long-and-short embroidery, but this fabric is not). It is a loosly woven cotton fabric, which, when I stitched, showed tiny holes, and the stitches were not close enough to each other. Therefore, I stopped stitching on that fabric and repeated the same dreadful process of selecting a fabric, tracing the design, selecting thread colors, etc. ... The pictures below will show my painful experience :-( 

 

However, now I am planning to stitch only the outlines of the design (as in Redwork) I drew on that fabric and use it as a napkin or a tablemat, because the fabric is good for outline stitches though not for filling stitches. The fabric I use now is a dark pink georgette. Though it is transparant, it is a good choice (according to me) for this type of embroidery. However, the fabric should be stretched properly to get fixed tightly on your embroidery hoop or frame, else your stitches will become loose, which will make your embroidery look displeasing. And here is my progress of the project today. I guess I am slow with my progress.

 

Please post your comments and ideas.

Yet another long-and-short embroidery project

My long-and-short stitch journey starts again....

This time I am using a traditional Chinese design from the book "Traditional Chinese Designs" by Barbara Christopher. This book is one of the "Dover Needlework Series" books. Here are the pictures.

Books I purchased recently

I wrote in my previous blog post that I recently purchased some embroidery books online. You can see these books in the images below. I will write the review of these books in the coming days.





Out of these books, the books Long and Short Stitch Embroidery (I have already reviewed here) and Cross Stitch: Techniques and Designs were gifted to me.

I have ordered for some more books and eagerly waiting to read them, to learn the techniques explained in them, and above all to see all the lovely images they contain.

I forgot to show you the photographs of the finished embroidery for the V-neck design. Here they are:



A close-up photo of the design.

My new responsibility

Hi friends,

Hope all are doing well. My new role as a mom had kept me away from updating my blog for almost two months. My daughter is six months old now. All my time is dedicated to her nowadays. I find this added reponsibility of motherhood enjoyable. I love to watch my daughter smile, coo, giggle, and do all naughty things. Although I don't find time to take up embroidery now, I am learning new embroidery techniques from the books I recently purchased online. I love to see my library of embroidery books expanding.

I would like to share the review of these books so that it may help you all. I have also plans to resume my embroidery projects soon and devote atleast 20 minutes a day.

Bye for now.....