For all lovers of hand and silk embroidery, you should not miss this. Kasooti is an ancient art form of hand embroidery credited to the Lambani tribes, the gypsies of India. The process is as follows: Initially the silk cloth to be hand embroidered is decorated with bits of cut mirror, costume jewellery and coins. Then the intricate stitching of Kasooti comes into play. The stitches are called Ele, Mente, Negi, Gavanthe and Marige. The designs are in tune with nature – flowers and creepers interwoven with animals such as cows, parrots, peacocks. The choice of the needles and the coloured threads is critical for the success of this embroidered product. Most of these designs are mirrored designs – that is, the left half would be a mirror image of the right half. You can view quite a few examples at the above mentioned site.

Kasooti embroidery is very useful for bridal trousseau, embroidered sarees (traditional dress of Indian women), bedsheets, cushions, wallhangings and table mats.

Among the fastest growing databases of free machine embroidery designs, here is one I came across at the Embroidery Forums. A couple of the free embroidery designs are related to the mega Christmas season, but most of the others are good ones contributed by our community of embroidery enthusiasts. In the last 3 weeks, we have 13 patterns contributed and made available for you in various embroidery formats.

The one that caught my eye was the free downloadable swirly Christmas tree design available in jef, vip and pes formats. (The information on PC machine embroidery would come in handy here) The beauty of this design lies in its simplicity. With just a couple of twirls and a few stars, the entire tree comes into view. Thanks to Monkella, who contributed this.

This is also the right moment for me to announce the launch of All Free Embroidery Designs – a showcase project of free embroidery designs. I would be delighted to have your feedback on our new venture!

Have you ever searched high and low – in knitting shops, bookstores or on-line for a how-to-knit book written specifically for knitting enthusiasts who are just getting started, yet not found one that covers an array of topics about this wonderful craft?

We have a solution for you — My Knitting: The Basic Beginners Guide To Success by Louise Flat. This book helps you to create projects from scratch and get the exact required finish. What is important that this focuses on you as a home embroiderer. It is a practically guided learning book on knitting which takes you by the hand through till the end.

(There is also a 60-day unconditional risk-free money back guarantee. I never needed to try this option as yet).

I would be delighted to have your feedback on this!

Forbidden Stitch also known as the Seed Stitch or Blind Stitch is a Chinese form of hand embroidery, where the embroidery designs are done through small knots made on the fabric surface by wrapping a heavy embroidery thread, usually silk floss, around a needle and then stitching it down. This is an ancient form of embroidery and early relics of this stitch have been found in an Eastern Han tomb at Nuoyinwula, Outer Mongolia and also in Linzi, Shandong Province. If you notice the example next to this post, each knot is separate, looped once around the needle, fairly flat and closed and a series of rows of such knots would form the embroidery design. Tough time-consuming work indeed!

Why the name “Forbidden Stitch”? – The story goes that this work was so fine, that continuously working on a design for hours at a stretch led to eyestrain and hence this form of stitching was forbidden in the past in China. This explains the fact that this is also called “blind stitch”. The second story, which also seems authentic and more straightforward, is that this originated in the Forbidden City of China and hence the name was coined after the city.

You could go through these couple of resources – the first gives the technique of forbidden stitches with images – Marlamallett and the second gives some practical examples of embroidered shirts – Vintage Textile.

But careful while experimenting – it is forbidden

After receiving a few requests on free embroidery design software, we did some researching on this subject. We are happy to announce that we have found a good free embroidery software that would convert your favourite photographs into embroidery designs. It is free to download at Pixel Hobby. Once you upload the photograph – almost immediately the software develops the embroidery design along with the colour details. You could then click on the print option which gives the details of the base plates, color codes and pixels. Finally you have an option for ordering the necessary base plates and threads required for stitching the particular design.

I tried it myself for a photograph of my twin children Keshav and Madhav – the output of which you see alongside this post. They came out quite well and distinct after choosing 4 baseplates for each axis. The total number of colours necessary for this embroidery design is 70 with 275 pixel squares. Let me know once you experiment on this. One could actually embroider one’s favourite photos through this software. We could have another section on free embroidery designs through this exercise.