A Few of My Favorite Things
Monday, December 5, 2011
As I was decorating for the Holidays and listening to the appropriate tunes, I started to think about brownie bites and light strings and a few of my favorite embroidery things. (Sorry for the change in lyrics – dog bites and bee stings just sound too painful.)
My actual list is long – here are just a few of the highlights…
DMC Embroidery Threads: I love ‘em and use only DMC.
My absolute favorite threads are Embroidery Floss and Floche.
The range of DMC’s embroidery floss colors in incredible, and did you know they’ve never discontinued a single solid color of floss?
Floche is just so luxurious to stitch with – and is perfect for monogramming. Sometimes I just spread the threads on the worktable and let them inspire me.
Foreign language embroidery books: I collect embroidery books from around the world, and love to look through them for inspiration. It’s always amazing to see just how unique the embroidery projects are in each country, while still utilizing the same basic techniques.
One of my favorites is Cartonnage Brodé by Sophie Delaborde and Sylvie Castelland.
These two talented embroideresses have taken new and vintage-inspired patterns and transformed them into boxes, bins and portfolios stitched in DMC floss. The finishes on these projects makes them very useful as well as pretty to look at – and they’d make terrific gifts!
Embroidery Blogs featuring talented needle artists: Mary Corbet’s Needle ‘N Thread is full of helpful tips, stitching instructions and historical information about a wide variety of embroidery types, while Carina Envoldsen-Harris’ Polka Dot & Bloom and Cécile Franconie’s Facile Cecile sites are truly inspiring, featuring updated project ideas perfect for stitchers of any skill level.
What are some of your favorite embroidery things? Tell us about them in the comments section!
~Emma
Do you know how we obtain a copy of Cartonnage Brode?
Hi Pat – There are many sources for this book online. If you type in the keywords “Cartonnage Brodé”with “Sophie Delaborde and Sylvie Castellano” in your favorite search engines, many options are available, including ThreadNeedle Street and Amazon France. ~Emma
Thank you! And thank you for sharing your “favorite things.”
Never discontinued a color? hmmm Wierd. I just inherited a (tiny amount of floss from my granma (purchased in the 1980′s) and all but one number is no longer (414, 237 for example) available. Also, I have several skeins (6 or 8 of them) that I purchased a decade or so ago with numbers (806, 776, 740 for example)that are no longer available, AND two of my favorite variegated (103, 57)are no longer available. Is there a reason for that?
DMC has never discontinued any solid color (click the link for more info) of embroidery floss, but some variagated colors have been discontinued. Also, different retail stores or chains may not always carry the entire line, but rather the ones that they feel will do best in their stores. I recommend locating an online retailer than carries the entire collection of DMC embroidery floss for locating the tough ones. ~Emma
Just found your site! Wonderful information.