Fabulous embroidery

Isn't this just fabulous embroidery? This is a close-up of the embroidery on a cap from the late 1800s. Did you know you can go to The Costume Institute and look at old textiles, dresses, purses and hats? I had no idea you could see such museum quality textiles online, and with such detail! (Note: I fixed the link)

Once you go to the website, you can put words in the search box like: embroidery, stomachers(they are usually heavily embellished), reticules(purses) or just "French". Most items can be enlarged, then you can zoom two or sometimes even three times to see a particular part of the item up close. Sometimes so close that you can see each stitch! More often close enough to see each bead or sequin (some of the stitching is just so fine)

Check it out; but you'd better make a cuppa, you'll want to see it all...

Enjoy....

~Lin Moon

New Books

I got a couple of new books for my birthday/Christmas that I really like. the first one is "Confetti Naturescapes" by Noriko Endo. I wonder if any of you have ever seen her quilts - they are so wonderful. I saw one of them in a magazine and then saw it up close at the International Quilt Festival in Long Beach last year. It was amazing! She uses a rotary cutter to cut toothpick-sized slivers of different fabrics(the confetti) and arranges them in a nature scene, covers it with tulle and then machine quilts it. Her quilts look so different up close than they do from far away. The quilt on the cover of the book won Best of Show at Quilt National in 2007.

The second book,"Ribbon Embroidery: Crazy Technique" isn't really a need-to-have book, but it's full of beautiful pix of silk ribbon embroidery. I got it from Piecemakers in Costa Mesa. When I googled the isbn, it is a Turkish book. My copy is from Turkey, but it's in English.

I'm also trying to teach myself needle tatting - there are some beautiful edgings that wouldn't take long to make five or six inches of, to be used in a crazy quilt block. But it's not as easy as I thought, it's hard to tell the front from the back when you don't have great eyesight, and sometimes you need to know just where you are - imagine that! If any of you needle tatters out there have any hints, I'd appreciate it....

Happy Stitchiing,
Lin Moon