Millions of Indians all over the world rejoiced last week when it was announced that Taj Mahal was reinstated as one of the seven wonders of the world.
The Taj Mahal is a mausoleum located in Agra, India. The Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan commissioned it as a mausoleum for his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. Construction began in 1632 and was completed in 1648. This was designed by Ustad Ahmad Lahauri along with skilled worksmen and craftsmen. The Taj Mahal is considered the finest example of Mughal Indian architecture, a style that combines Persian, Indian, Islamic and Turkish styles. The white domed marble mausoleum is most popular and many a time denoted as a national symbol (India). In 1983, this monument became a UNESCO World Heritage site and was cited as the “Jewel of Muslim Art in India”.

What does this edifice have anything to do with embroidery. Have you ever seen an embroidered Taj Mahal…! Check this out at Patterns Boutique. Isn’t it a beauty. This has been done through cross stitch embroidery. Since it is a pattern, it is important that the embroiderer uses the recommended fabric – Aida 18 and the recommended color – white to ensure the beautiful marvel of Taj Mahal comes out best on your embroidery. In the case of the pattern next to the post, the fabric size is 40*32 cm and there are a total of 30 color stitches.

Portraits like the Taj Mahal are great as wall hangings and door adornments.

I will try to follow this up sometime later with some of the portraits of the other wonders of the world.

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Anyway, to continue – let us first understand the difference between signs and symbols. A sign is a material object which points clearly to something – like a road sign or the weather. A symbol is a deeper connotation or reflection of something profound. For example, the moon symbolizes calmness, desires while a sun symbolizes victory, warmth.

The next important question for a person on this path is to determine one’s sign or symbol. The simpler ones are birthday symbols (determined by your birth date and time – You could also have precious stones related to your birthday). The tougher ones are symbols that are revealed to people through dreams, meditation or trance states.

Signs and symbols embroidery is nothing but embroidering these signs and symbols. What is special is that you would find all of them as a category or group in one place.

Some of the examples would be the embroidered alchemy group. There are 7 elements in alchemy. One of them is copper. Check out the alchemy copper embroidered image above. This is available for sale at “What’s your sign” in the form of embroidery patches, appliqued T-shirts, sweatshirts, wall hangings or just as an embroidered item. Finished alchemy sign embroidery designs (on shirts) are approximately 3.5″ x 3.5″. Finished Wallhangings are about 8″x8″. Patches/Badges are about 4″ x 4″. All shirts are high quality Jerzees, Hanes or Fruit of the Loom, 100% cotton.

You also have animal totems or animal symbols in the same resource website – an example is the alchemy phoenix which you see besides this post. The dimensions and product details of animal symbols embroidery are identical to alchemy embroidery. These are quite colorful and even feature peacocks, lions and other wild animals.

So, what’s your sign?

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Check out this great resource I came across on hand embroidery designs – “Knitting-and” The critters have come out really cute, haven’t they! This is one place where we could find some rarely embroidered creatures like dragonfly and redback spider. The Indian motifs especially the peacock design is worth a peek. You could find more information on cultural embroidery at Indian embroidery. Most of these embroideries can be knitted using Brother embroidery machines. But the one which takes the cake is the moth you see besides this post. A moth at the onset of its transformation to a butterfly is a beautiful sight and this embroidery manages to capture that moment. This knitting embroidery was done using 6 six strands for filling and 3 for the outline.

Knitting is a beautiful art and if you ever want to learn knitting, I would recommend the tutorial on Knitting Tips.  It has a basic 5 day free e-tutorial for you.

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Hi! I thought of going out of the beaten track for some scintillating embroidery designs for you from Uzbekistan – traditional Uzbek silk embroidery folk art. This exquisite silk embroidery panel you see next to this post was hand-stitched by women using age-old traditions.

The story goes back to the 19th century when Uzbek women produced beautiful bed covers, embroidered hangings, wrapping cloths, table covers, and prayer mats for their households. As the Soviet Era ended and Westerners became more familiar with the finest old Uzbek pieces, prices for antique examples escalated. Now gorgeous contemporary embroideries decorate not only Uzbekistan homes, but also grace European and American households, while talented and industrious Uzbek women have a welcome new source of family income. Fortunately, we now have access to beautiful contemporary textiles that are a natural outgrowth of the old traditions–at very reasonable prices. Most of this embroidery art work are focused in the Tashkent, Nurata, Samarkand, Bukhara and Shahrisabz areas. The new pieces are captivating, with inspired designing, excellent materials, and fine craftsmanship.

How is Uzbek embroidery done? – The embroidery foundation cloth are hand-woven fabrics. These fabrics are woven in narrow strips. Most current-day pieces are a silk/cotton blend: a silk warp is most usual, with cotton wefts. In satin-weave pieces the weft is also silk. Occasional ground fabrics are all cotton, especially for pieces expected to get hard use, such as horse covers. The fabrics are often lightly dyed to produce a soft beige tint. Occasionally other colors are used for the ground fabrics. Team work – generally part of the same family – gets together for large suzanis where several of the fabric strips are first sewn loosely together and the pattern is drawn on them. Later when the panels are rejoined, the pattern parts may not match perfectly, and extra stitches may be added in the areas along the seams.   You could hang these as tapestry or use as an applique,  bedspread, coverlet, curtain, or tablecloth.

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To start with, what exactly is beadweaving : “To form embroidered designs by combining various elements into a connected whole adding beads at regular intervals is known as beadweaving”. Check the diagram at your side to get some understanding of the same.
If you want to go through a simple project book with lots of pictures, I recommend the book by Ann Benson : Beadweaving: New Needle Techniques & Original Designs.

Benson focuses on converting craft into wearable art. She uses black-and-white diagrams to clarify procedures and introduces two types of beadwork–needle weaving, in which beads are threaded together, and card stitching, in which beads are sewn directly on to a backing of construction paper or lightweight cardboard. More than 40 amazing projects–mostly jewelry and decorative accessories–are included, with graphed or gridded patterns, step-by-step instructions, and a complete list of materials right down to bead size and color.

Another book worth noting in this art is The Complete Guide to Traditional Native American Beadwork: A Definitive Study of Authentic Tools, Materials, Techniques, and Styles by Joel Monture. This book offers stunning photos and a good section on traditional color use which together could give one a good starting point for one’s own creations. Joel is a professor of traditional arts at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. His book documents not only native American beadwork techniques, but the tedious methods of leather preparation that are necessary prior to beading.

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This art is truly amazing! What is punch needlework embroidery? Punch needle stitchery is the technique of ironing a transfer pattern onto cotton/polyester fabric and then punching yarn, floss or ribbon into the fabric to fill design areas with color. There are special needles used for this purpose which are sharp, stainless steel hollow tubes (in varying sizes) with an eye, inserted into a comfort-fit handle. They come in various shapes like flat, looped, contoured or sculpted depending on your requirement. The end result is a breathtaking display of dramatic textures and combinations.

Take a look at the embroidery design of Jeffrey Lansing beside this post. The warrior literally stands out on the piece of frame and a lot of emphasis has been given to the contours of the face and headband. Some more designs could be found at Punch Projects.

Happy punching, friends!

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A friendly acquaintance drew my attention to this beautiful needlepoint tapestry website – Friendly Services. An excellent and wide range of embroidery designs in various categories ranging from crewel embroidery to cats, horses, christmas designs and other best sellers. (The name of the website is misleading though!)

Tapestry is an ancient art. Tradition has it that in Greek mythology, Penelope awaited her husband Ulysses while weaving tapestries. The tapestries were not only decorative, but played a practical role in covering the walls of huge castles. Medieval cartoon-painters and weavers produced the very same masterpieces that are shown on this web site. The ones I liked best were the best sellers.

Tapestry kits contain the canvas printed in full colour, yarn, needle, and instructions. The 100% cotton canvas is a double weave antique or white canvas called Old Penelope or White Penelope – the name coined from the mythological tale. The yarn is 100% pure wool. The kits may be stitched in either half-cross or tent stitch.

The goal of Friendly Services is to provide you with the best quality in hand craft products.

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This is truly sparkling. Ordinary embroidery design sets transformed into a special glory through a sparkling template. Visit Embroidery.com for further details. This concept is courtesy “Adorable Ideas” whose unique contribution to the world of embroidery is well appreciated. Each embroidery design set contains the embroidery design file (which can be sewn using your embroidery machine), one sparkle template matching the particular design (made of rhinestones) and a CD with instructions and step by step demonstration video. Once you feel that the embroidery design sewn is perfect, you could then use the sparkle template, since there is only one template per set. (More templates can be purchased if necessary.) The design is machine washable. Rhinestones sparkle when light falls on it. They can be used on most fabrics except nylon, velvet, acrylic, leather and vinyl.

Amongst the sample sparkle embroidery designs – the goldfish, oops-a-daisy and movie star are really well done. To start this project, I would suggest the “Sparkling Sun and Palm trees”. Simple yet attractive. This is sized 4.24″ by 4.54″ and contains 4485 stitches. This is available in ART, CND, DST, EMB, EXP, HUS, JEF, PCM, PCS, PES VIP AND XXX formats. (to know more about formats, view PC Machine embroidery). The main color stops used are grill orange, french toast, olive drab and irish green.

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This embroidery website has been haunting me for quite some time and I couldn’t resist writing about it – Embroidery Artwork. The classic hand embroidered Hunan silk embroidery designs also called as Magic Art is a perfect union of embroidery designing and art. The threads used are made of silk, floss or delicate cotton thread depending on the aspect of needlework. Embroidery artisans, usually more than one, work for several months in unison to create one design! The final output as you can see from the example next to this post – is breathtaking. This is indeed a private collectors fantasy. Just like the portrait of Diana, (this one in particular generally takes one year to complete after an order is placed) embroidery portraits for customers can be done on a made-to-order basis. Apart from this, the website also portrays sceneries, lakes, flowers and meadows in all its splendour.

This is definitely among the best in the collection of embroidery designs web sites.

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