Focus on: Wool & Hoop

We just received a large shipment of kits, books, and pins from Texas-based shop Wool and Hoop. Wool and Hoop was founded by Katherine Shaughnessy. She is a formally trained artist who, although her mother taught her crewel embroidery at a young age, started using stitching more often in her art in college. She became more interested in embroidery and was searching for fun cool crewel kits when she decided to start making her own. That's how Wool and Hoop was started.

Wool and Hoop's crewel kits are all really fun and have bright colors and designs that are simple enough for beginners (the kits say they are appropriate for ages 8 and up) to learn with but that seasoned stitchers would also find exciting. And, an added plus is that everything you need is inside the kit. It includes linen fabric, wool thread, needles, a blank greeting card and envelope (for finishing), and complete instructions. There's even a free hoop included! The designs are around 3 x 3 inches each, so they are also a great quick project you can stitch up for a really nice personal gift.

Along with the kits, we received Katherine's first book, titled The New Crewel. It's full of interesting information about crewel as well as ideas for projects. Each design featured in her book includes a list of the fabric, thread, stitches, and finishing ideas for that piece. She also adds helpful little crewel tips after each pattern. We also got transfer fabric so you can transfer either your own designs, or the ones you see in her book, and we also got assorted packs of her designs, ready to be ironed onto your fabric of choice! With so many options, it's easy to see how you could end up with a lot of different projects with only one design!

Below see a picture of Mandy, who is stitching one of the kits up as a sample of what it will look like finished and to experience it herself. She's having a lot of fun, and it looks really fun to do as well! I think these kits will be a lot of fun! Come on in and see what they're all about and to get acquainted with crewel work!

Stitch of the Week: Trellis Couching

Trellis Couching which is also known as Jacobean Couching and Double Cross Trame'. It is a filling stitch which won't completely cover the canvas. This means that you will see some raw canvas. Like the T Stitch, which was covered in our last Stitch of the Week blog, it is best to use this type of stitch on a canvas with a color that matches the threads you are using. If you're using this stitch in an embroidery project, the color of the fabric would be quite important, whereas if you are doing this on a needlepoint project, you would want the piece you were stitching this over to coordinate. This would ensure that your colors wouldn't clash and the project would look great!

The Trellis stitch is great for baskets, clothing, angel wings, bonnets, fans, lattices, curtains, Christmas packages, kimonos and borders.

An idea for a combination of threads for this project would be to use overdyed for the grid, solid perle cotton or stranded cotton or silk for crosses. You could also use two values of the same color. use a lighter color for the grid and darker for the cross to make this stand out. Also try to opposite! This stitch really lends itself for being creative and mixing colors and threads.

Focus on: Sublime Stitching

We recently received a number of embroidery patterns for our shop by Sublime Stitching. Sublime Stitching was founded by artist Jenny Hart. She is very well known for her personal embroidery work, which has been featured in Vogue, Nylon, Spin, The Face, Juxtapoz, The New York Times Magazine and more! One of her pieces is this fabulous portrait of Edith Piaf. She also has an upcoming exhibition in Paris that focus on her drawings! You can check out images of her drawings at her flickr page. They have a reminiscent style to her embroidered art. I am intrigued by her style and really enjoy her work, whether it's her embroidery or drawings. Also check out her blog for some of her favorite artists and updates on what she's working on!

Some of the fun Embroidery Patterns we have available in the store are shown below. Included in the packs are an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of iron-on transfers. You'll use them to transfer onto whatever item you wish to embroider on, and then use the included innstructions and embroidery lesson (if you're rusty or new to embroidery!) to start your project! The package promises to imprint multiple times, so if you really love the design, you can stitch it more than once!


Come on in to the store when you have a chance and check out these great patterns! There's a lot to choose from, and with all the different threads we have in stock, so many different ways to stitch them!

Stitch of the Week: T Stitch

The T Stitch is an open stitch that can be used for stitching angel wings, lace, and small details like flower buds, glasses, and eyeglass lenses. It is used for filling in areas where you would like to show the canvas as well as the stitch. It's an excellent stitch for an open background. You should use a color that closely matches the painted background to make sure that the canvas that shows through matches and/or compliments the thread you're using. We used DMC Overdyed Perle cotton on top of a rectangle that had been painted red for the middle example shown above. This really created a lovely effect.

For angel's wings use Snow, Kreinik #12 or #8.

Stitch of the week: Rice Stitch

The Rice stitch is also known as the William and Mary stitch or Crossed Corners.

When using this stitch in one of your projects, you will do a diagonal cross stitch over an even number of canvas intersections, then each corner of the cross stitch is tied down with a diagonal stitch in the same or a different color. This stitch has a variety of appearances depending upon the weight, color, and texture of the yarn employed. It looks great in a background, as a border, a filler or a feature stitch. The advantage of this stitch is it is an attractive stitch with multiple variations. The only disadvantage is that it is a slow stich.
Some variations to make this stitch stand out even more would be to use two colors (cross in one color, tie downs in another color). You could even blow this stitch up, which would make it the "giant rice" stitch. This is achieved by doing a diagonal cross over four canvas intersections. The straight rice stitch is performed by stitching horizontally and vertically rather than diagonally.

Stitch of the week: Norwich Stitch

The Norwich stitch, also known as the Waffle stitch, is a counted thread stitch where you stitch 3 rows diagonally, stitching over 3 intersections, then 4, then 3, and then stitch the same amount of rows in the opposite direction so the stitches intersect. This stitch fills a square area, but produces a diamond pattern in the center of the stitch. Use solid color threads or overdyed threads for a more dramatic effect. It can either be worked in one color or two. Also, a good thing to keep in mind when considering this stitch for your piece is that it looks stunning with an overdyed thread!

Check out the photo below to see some examples of this lovely stitch using threads like kreinik, perle cotton, and watercolors overdyed cotton. This would be a lovely decorative stitch for an abstract geometric piece. When researching how it has been used, one stitcher said she was going to use it for a tissue box cover. Although there was no photo of the finished project, I can imagine that it came out very well!

Wearable Needlework

Embroidered and stitched accessories and clothing have been around for a long time, but it seems like the trend of using embroidery, cross-stitch and needlepoint to stitch things like buttons, earrings, headbands, barrettes, bags, and more has been coming back. After a recent search on Etsy, I came across a few shops owned by crafters who really caught my eye. The theme was wearable needlework!

The Pin Pals, run by artists Samantha Purdy and Sara Guindon, whose blog you can see here , have a really fun Etsy store. I definitely lost track of time looking at all of their goodies and also perusing their Flickr page, where you can see other projects they've done and also some craft shows they have participated in! One of my favorite products that they sell and show are these great barrettes. They've really found a way to use relatively simple designs and create something really sweet and wearable. I know I would love to wear these! Another great way to incorporate their buttons is shown to the left. The acorn buttons really add a really pretty accent to the dress.

Another crafter I came across is Claudia Dominguez, who runs the store Deep Indigo on Etsy. You can also browse her Flickr page to see other crafts that she has done. I really love these rosebud earrings. They are so dainty, and I love the combination of the delicate embroidered flower and the herringbone fabric. One of the other products she sells in her shop are these charming zippers. They are embroidered around the edge, so that when you sew them, you will be able to see the embroidered details, which would really add a special touch to whatever project you were sewing.

Something probably everyone has seen are embroidered blouses like this one, also from Etsy at the store Purple Deer Vintage. It isn't hard to find embroidered shirts, but if you are confident and ambitious, you could definitely embroider your own shirt. There are many different patterns and motifs in books and online. We definitely have a good selection here at the shop of books with different embroidery templates which you could use as a starter to creating your own.

As a testament to how needlepoint and needlework is becoming more popular, this Baguette Needlepoint Kit can be found on Neiman Marcus' website. It is a Fendi bag that includes the thread, three design cards, needles, and thimbles. Needlepoint purses and clutches are definitely a popular item here at the shop, and this just goes to show that they aren't exclusive to needlepoint shops!