Tangled Thread

April 15th, 2008

organzing your sewing room

Keeping my fabric and notions organized seems to take constant effort for me - I usually store everything in large, clear plastic tubs or storage towers with drawers. My thread is stored in drawers on top of my sewing table and I keep things like elastic and trims in another tall set of drawers […]

By Chloe -- 1 comment

January 6th, 2008

silk floss

I’ve had a few requests for the source of the silk floss I used in the igolochkoy Christmas tree ornament.  I finally tracked their website down!  Prepare to drool…

Is that not a luscious photo?  Those are some of the colors that The Silk Tree in British Columbia carries.   You can also buy it at […]

By Chloe -- 8 comments

January 3rd, 2008

yummy threads on sale

Sew Thankful is holding an end of the year close-out sale and they’ve got some lovely hand & machine embroidery threads for awesome deals.
There are Finca Perle Cotton in solids & variegated.   El Molino rayon floss & La Paleta machine embroidery rayon thread.
Tags: embroidery-thread-sales, fabric-stores, online shopping, online-fabric-shopping, online-thread-shopping, salesShare This

By Chloe -- 0 comments

November 26th, 2007

how to of the day: embroidered crazy quilt Christmas card

I posted one of my Christmas projects on Saturday, an embroidered crazy quilt Christmas card.  Here are the step-by-step instructions to make your own.  The key to remember about projects like this is there is no “right way” to make them.  Have fun, play with your fabrics and enjoy the process :-)
I started off by […]

By Chloe -- 6 comments

November 23rd, 2007

using iron-on transfer to make Christmas ornaments

I was leafing through some of my iron-on embroidery transfer books this morning and couldn’t resist coming up with a Christmas project using them.
I’m using transfer from the Dover book “Art Nouveau Floral Iron-On Transfer Patterns”, by Ed Sibbett Jr.
I started off by following the directions to transfer the image onto some plain, unbleached muslin:

The […]

By Chloe -- 2 comments

August 13th, 2007

part 2 of rubber stamps and embroidery

Here’s the painted silk, after I let it dry overnight and then embroidered:

I did simple free-motion machine embroidery outlining the butterflies.  I used rayon embroidery thread, which I love using for projects like this because of the sheen.
If I had more time, I would get more detailed with embroidering the butterfly wings - but I […]

By Chloe -- 1 comment

June 20th, 2007

links for hand-embroidery

I thought it would be fun to post a great site for hand-work & embroidery :-)

Nordic Needle carries an amazing variety of supplies & tools for handwork. I believe they have something like 19,000 different products? Definitely worth exploring!
Tags: Great Sites, hand-embroidery, links, online shoppingShare This

By Chloe -- 1 comment

April 4th, 2007

using metallic threads

I love the look of metallic sewing machine thread on fabric (whether it’s clothing, art work or something)  I’ve made quite a few pieces over the years using different metallic threads:

These are from a series of porfolios I’ve made.  You can see the full size portfolio here.

I’ve used gold thread to outline the flowers -it […]

By Chloe -- 1 comment

March 19th, 2007

monogrammed stationary part 2

Sorry about the lack of posts yesterday - I had about half an hour yesterday to deal with email… and that was it!
Here’s photos of the four finished cards - like all my work posted here, these are copyrighted & cannot be copied for sale or donation without my express written permission.

I used watercolor paper […]

By Chloe -- 0 comments

March 17th, 2007

making your own monogrammed stationary

I’ve had a set of silk swatches sitting (boy, say that fast 3 times!) on my studio desk for awhile now:
I decided that they would be perfect to use as my background for the embroidered cards. I ironed on a heavy-weight fusible interfacing (not necessary, but it’s sooo much easier this way!) and trimmed […]

By Chloe -- 2 comments