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.

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.

You might recollect ‘Diana’ in the magic of silk embroidery at the hand embroidery designs page.

Welcome to Suzhou – the silk hand embroidery city of China – also known as the paradise on Earth. This town is studded with wonderful gardens, soft Suzhou accent, delicious Suzhou food and of course – amazing silk double-sided embroidery art. Check out some samples at SuEmbroidery.com. Most silk hand embroidery products find a good export market. Su embroidery is well-known for its neat stitches, elegant colors and fine quality. The methods applied in producing embroidery artworks include crisscrossing, mixing, netting, scattering and many unique secret methods.

History of Su Embroidery – Chinese Suzhou embroidery (Su embroidery for short) is the most famous hand embroidery art (history exceeding 2000 years) among all embroideries in China. It is said that after the Song Dynasty (about 960 AD), every family in Suzhou bred silkworms and made hand embroidery. Even now many people live by embroidering. For example, Zhenhu, a small town has close to 10,000 embroidery craftswomen.

# Su embroidery is sorted by theme: Silk hand embroidery animal
# Silk hand embroidery portrait
# Silk hand embroidery landscape
# Silk hand embroidery flower

There are two varieties of Su embroidery based on techniques applied: single sided embroidery, double sided embroidery of different colors. Double sided embroidery – the specific style of Su embroidery can be appreciated from both sides. Pictures look exactly the same and wonderful on both the sides. Some complex double sided embroideries can have two totally different pictures on the two sides of the silk embroidery. For this, special ways are used in knitting instead of knotting. The end of the silk thread is invisible. It is knitted in the right angle without piercing the other side. Both sides would then present the same excellent effect.

Take the example of the farm lady with chickens above this post. What impresses one is the depth of the embroidery art, the ease at which the emotions of the lady are portrayed and finally the clarity of the features of the birds and trees. Truly amazing!

Su embroidery furnishings include scarves, curtains, handkerchiefs, ladies clothes, tablecloths, pillow covers, cushion covers, wall hangings.

If you recollect, I had written about the amazing silk embroidery designs, where the threads were so fine that the final design looked like a photograph. I now introduce you to the impressionist photograph or sketch design done through your embroidery machine. This is called the photo-stitch technique and is reminiscent of pencil or crayon sketches, rather than embroidery. If you take the example of this girl, the entire design is done in 10-12 layers of stitches. The first couple of layers are just the skin on her face. The next few would focus on features like eyes, nose and ears. Then would come the finishing touches to the hair, making the entire embroidery design more dense. Each of these layers are stitched one after the other. You can liken it to a far away blurred image slowly focusing and coming into the foreground. The final output looks awesome and complex, but it is actually done in 12 easy layers. (like they say, the only way to chew an elephant is to bite it into small pieces)

Click here for free tutorials on the photo-stitch design. Details of choice of the right fabric, stabilizer and method of hooping is elaborately described here. For this particular girl, the size of the hoop is 89.0 x 152.7 mm, the total number of stitches is 45001 and there are 12 colors used. This photo-stitch embroidery design can be freely downloaded using *.ART *.DST *.HUS *.JEF *.PES *.VIP *.XXX and the information on machine embroidery would come in handy here.

One of my best friends just presented me with this beautiful hand embroidered oak leaf. Simply a marvelous job! Here is the description of the design as reproduced from the place she got it from -

“This hand embroidery design is worked in detached chain stitch on hand dyed fabric leaving just the area of the leaf un-stitched. This design technique is described as the voided shape technique where the image itself is not stitched but the surrounding area is.

A variety of yarns were used including commercially dyed stranded cottons, hand dyed stranded cottons and rayon threads.”

What really amazed me was the way in which the leaf seems to emerge from the background and the clarity of the veins of the leaf design, which were a cut above the rest.

Last time I wrote about amazing embroidery designs, I mentioned Hunan Silk, which is truly an unique type of embroidery that resembles oil paintings or photography. My second favorite type of embroidery that undoubtedly belongs to the amazing category are embroidery appliscapes. The “Applique” section on SecretsOf.com has a few of them (click on the above link, choose “Everything for Embroidery”, then “appliques” from the left side navigation menu, and scroll down for the appliscapes).

The process of embroidering appliscapes is to break up the design into many pieces, generally 16, do each one separately and then join together seamlessly. Apart from the Chinese appliscape shown here, the Hawaian and the Victorian appliscapes found on the site are both worth your try.

Embroidery appliscapes make great bedsheets or screen curtains, although I saw once a different use of such an appliscape. The person had made an enlarged version of the applique design and secured it underneath the umbrella. Don’t ask me why! I am still guessing.

If you have seen any websites featuring embroidery appliscapes, do let me know.

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If you ask me which are the most amazing works of embroidery designs I have ever come across, the first that comes to my mind is Hunan Silk embroidery designs. Hunan embroidery form builds on inherited traditional techniques, in pursuit of perfect unity of embroidery technique and art design. Modern Hunan embroidery effects romantic charm and provides realistic expression of lifelike classic figures in vivid texture and brilliant color achievable only by the hand of the artisan. Hunan silk embroidery design is well known for rich colors comparable to an oil painting and realism comparable to photography. The unique technique of Hunan embroidery provides a means for threads of different colors to mix naturally, resulting in a very harmonious effect. There is no real comparison to this form of embroidery art.

Do let me know if you have come across any Hunan Silk embroidery design!

I was searching for some unusual embroidery designs in Google when I came across this interesting lady and her website. Her name is M. A. Klein and her works hang in many corporate, public and private collections including the Library of Congress, Washington, DC, and in churches and community buildings.

Klein used to design and manufacture needlecraft kits sold throughout the United States under the labels of Hanson Handcrafts, Monterey Bay Needleworks (Designs by Mary-Alice) and Sunbow, Inc. At the same time she was raising seven girls and one boy, all teenagers at that time!

Since 1979, she began to concentrate on one-of-a-kind textile wall hangings in mixed-media fiber collage which combine collage (applique), acrylic painting, embroidery (both hand and machine), and quilting. Occasionally she adds needleweaving, drawn threads, beads and such.

Quite an unique stuff, indeed!

I felt it a different experience to view her embroidery designs and other works of art, not only because of their one-of-a-kind design but because each of them seemed to convey some meaning that resonated from her heart. The designs seemed to be real life episodes experienced by Klein translated onto her embroidery works. Especially the Watering Hole, which currently hangs inside the Library of Congress, is a must see! So simple, yet so beautiful. Among other works that I especially liked were Religious Works, Story Time and People & Children.

What do you think about her site? Which of Klein’s embroidery designs are your favorites? Just click on the “Contact” link at the bottom of this page to send me your thoughts.