Do you tend to stick to a few tried and tested favorite hand embroidery stitches?
I know I’m guilty of primarily working in cross stitch and the standard needlepoint stitches, the tent or half-cross stitch.  I may bring out the lazy daisy or back stitch if I’m not working on gridded canvas or Aida cloth…
But there is a world of stitches out there!

Have you ever heard of the “Droit stitch” or the “Stepped Sheaf stitch”?  How about the exotic-sounding “Turkey”, “Egyptian” or “Romanian” stitches?
If you’d like to expand your stitching repertoire, the Stitchopedia website is the place to start your search.  …read more

I’ve been slowly working away on a piece of cross stitch for the past couple of weeks.  I tend to do an hour or so at a time, and don’t usually rush through projects like this.
Of course, if it was for a gift, I’d be tearing through it, but I enjoy the contemplative nature of hand embroidery.  I’m enjoying the process as much as I’ll enjoy the finished project… hopefully
I’m still working away on the borders right now:

One thing that I’ve noticed about my stitching habits, is that I tend to like to get the “structure” of the …read more

Since I covered my five favorite sewing supplies yesterday, I thought I should take a look at my embroidery supplies today
Since I do both machine and hand-embroidery, but covered sewing yesterday – I’m just going to share my 5 favorite hand-embroidery supplies in this post.
In no particular order…

A good embroidery hoop – I have very particular likes and dislikes when it comes to embroidery hoops.  I plastic hoops that are between 4″ and 6″ across (I find that larger hoops strain my wrists), that adjusts with a screw (I don’t like spring hoops) and one that has a …read more

I recently picked up an adorable cross stitch kit.  I normally prefer to buy patterns and then pick embroidery floss up separately, but I just couldn’t find a pattern I liked.
The benefit of buying a kit, is that if you only need a foot of a particular color, you don’t need to buy a whole hank of floss.
Of course, the downside is trying to separate 25 different colors of embroidery floss that have been knotted together…
I like to organize my floss in bright, natural light.  I find I get the best color separation in natural light – there is just …read more

Since I found a great free cross stitch text generator yesterday, I thought I should take a look around the web today and see if I could find any sampler motif patterns.
Did I find some lovely free cross stitch patterns?
Oh yes!

Carrie’s Creations has lots of mini motifs, perfect for charting together to make a sampler, or just using by themselves as accents.
Cross Stitch at About.com has mini samplers for each month of the year.
LMc Designs has several back-stitch alphabets and numbers, perfect for creating your own saying or phrase on your sampler.
Dunmani Designs has some lovely motifs, alphabets and borders, …read more

I’d like to try tackling my first cross stitch sampler.  I’ve done many, many embroidery projects over the years – I’ve even charted my own cross stitch patterns.  But I haven’t done a sampler yet…
But I have to admit, I don’t like charting cross stitch (or needlepoint) letters and numbers.
I was just tickled pink when I found this great free online site for creating your own cross stitch alphabet!

StitchPoint has six different alphabets that you can choose from.  Just enter your text, print out your pattern and start stitching.
The interface takes a little bit of time to get comfortable (I …read more

Are you making crafts for Valentine’s Day?
Did you know that there are lots of free patterns and tutorials for Valentine’s Day crafts, sewing projects and even cross stitch charts in the Tangled Thread archives?  I decided to make things easier for you and have got a bunch of the patterns for you here:
♥ Three patterns for hearts & roses cross stitch.
♥ Try sewing your own lingerie for Valentine’s Day.
♥ Here are two of my easy hand-embroidered felt “Heart Felt” cards.
♥ This is another Heart Felt card – this time it’s accented with French knots.
♥ I made these cute little embroidered …read more

Not every Christmas project you cross-stitch or needlepoint needs to be a big one – in fact, it can be a lot of fun to work on little projects that you can finish in one or two evenings.
I’ve found some fun, free patterns for Christmas cross-stitch and needlepoint.   These projects would make great gifts, labels for special presents or even hung on your tree.  You could use plastic canvas or cross-stitch paper to make stiff ornaments, or use Aida cloth to make Christmas cards.
Just click on the image to view the free pattern:

image: Free Patterns Online

image: Cross-stitch.About.com

image: …read more

 Halloween is just around the corner, so I thought it would be fun to share some of my favorite free patterns for Halloween crafts with you all!
Take a scary stroll through the Tangled Thread archives with me…

Venetian-style mask
 Mini painted pumpkin bag
Kids Halloween crafts
Inspiration for plus-size costumes
Free Halloween cross-stitch charts
Cute costumes for your child & your dog!
Even more embroidery patterns for cross-stitch

image: Stock.xchg

I think this is such a clever idea! Leisure Art’s designer, Kathy Elrod, has come up with an easy way to create your own original cross-stitch designs with rubber stamps.
Just use a water-proof ink (I’ve had really good results with Staz-On) and stamp your design directly onto your aida cloth. Use the same color ink as your embroidery floss to make sure you don’t have weird shadows underneath the stitches You can even stamp words or letters, or just draw them on with a permanent pen.