The first of its kind in the world of embroidery on such a large scale… an online exhibition for embroidery machines - Sewing and Machine Embroidery Online Exp 2008! The grand launch is on 1st July 2008 and is being organised by fibre2fashion. This 45 day show is a cost effective way for various manufacturers across the globe to display their exhibits and new technology to the emerging markets of India, China and South East Asia. It does away with large transport costs, custom clearances for their exhibit materials and at the same time provides an effective booth visitation by a specified target audience. If proved successful, I am quite sure that this would be replicated by other forums on all product lines.

This has actually been triggered with new markets opening up in the Eastern hemisphere of the world and few products with little knowledge available on the latest technology and trends in embroidery. In my view the 2 unique features of this online exhibition are - The first is an online chat facility between the visitor and the manufacturer. Chatting is necessary in order to resolve queries, concerns and most importantly the visitor gets a comfort feel with the manufacturer whom he would ideally like to see and deal face to face. The second feature - a 360 degree view of all products is almost like seeing the product in reality. This is critical because when a visitor decides to make a purchase worth a few hundred dollars one would want to feel, touch and study the whole product inside out. The 360 degree view meets this criteria quite well except the ‘feel’ part. With virtual reality coming of age, the ‘feel’ part would soon be taken care of.

From the manufacturers point of view an additional advantage is that this exhibition is open 24 * 7 for 45 days continuously. Visitors across the globe in different time zones would be able to access this at their convenient times. The manufacturer also gets tracking information and contact details of all the potential buyers who visited his online booth so that they can follow up later with them.

In short, this exhibition promises to be a great destination for sellers and buyers of embroidery machines.

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The highlight of this style of embroidery is the stuffed figures and attached pieces of embroidery. Nature provides as a backdrop to a couple in the foreground - all in the finest of details. Little dolls with shoes, ruffs, collars, skirts stand boldly in the embroidered piece which are generally used on mirrors and small bags.

Stumpwork Embroidery: A Collection Of Fruits, Flowers & Insects For Contemporary Raised Embroidery by Jane Nicholas gives readers a complete insight on the trends and methods adopted for this ancient technique. Of late, there has been a revival of this embroidery and one does see it in some of the embroidery stalls across the world. The book  comprehensively covers the details of the equipment required like fabric and threads, general instructions for an embroiderer and finally 10 different interesting projects on stumpwork embroidery. The projects which form a highlight of this book includes Pomegranate and Strawberries, Rose and Bee, Acorn Thistle and Bee, Christmas Rose and Dragonfly, Gooseberries to name a few.

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‘I await inspiration. I do not plan it,’ she explains. ‘It could be a simple piece of jewellery that might take my fancy and become an inspiration for an entire collection.’

Married with two daughters, Zareena has successfully launched and maintained three businesses with the support of her husband, Colonel Mohammed Murad. She looks towards India for inspiration due to its age old tradition and culture. She has started an enterprise in Delhi with a team of designers and embroidery craftsmen. Her endeavors include a well-known beauty salon and a wedding events management company. She juggles between family life and her career and maintains a healthy balance between the two. ‘Without harmony at home, a woman cannot achieve heights. My family is my strength,’ she points out.

EDG wishes her all the best in her bejewelled embroidered life!

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I just came across a good resource for shopping of some essential embroidery supplies. If you want to buy good quality hoops, stabilizers, thread or scissors visit Mr. Vac Mrs. Sew. The cat/hoop package includes prewound bobbins, scissors, thread for the Brother SE-270D, HE-120 and Innovis 500D. The Hat Hoop allows you the unique ability to embroider on the uncommon medium of a typical baseball style cap. The embroidery stork scissors looks really charming quite alike to the natural bird. This comes in handy for that fine detail work where the needle sharp point can reach where others can’t. This proves ideal for monogram work, applique, embroidery, ripping seams and trimming loose threads. This scissor is not only versatile but beautiful with it’s gorgeous engraved gold-plated stork design. The stabilizer comes under the brand name ‘Sulky’. We have various versions of the stabilizer which includes the Sticky Self-Adhesive 8.25 by 6 yards, Solvy water soluble stabilizer 8 by 9.5 yards, Soft n Sheer Cut Away 8 by 11 yards, Wash Away Tear Away stabilizer 15 by 25 yards. Depending on the particular embroidery, the necessary stabilizer can be taken up.

The Polystar threads with all 61 Brother colors especially produced for Brother Innovis embroidery machines are a specialty at the thread section. Apart from this, the Maderia embroidery thread package is a treat for the viewers!

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We start with Kathleen Bentley Tackett of Blaze Branch, Dorton who has developed an expertise in applique patterns. It is said that her applique finishes are so good, that the stitches seem to disappear like magic.  This is primarily due to the finesse skills garnered through her many years of practise.   As a child, her main motivation to take up sewing was her grandmother and in her own words: “I would stand at her sewing machine and watch her making pretty dresses for her daughters”. As a young woman, she worked towards getting a tailoring certificate and made the uniforms for the Virgie High School Band. She loved making complicated stuff. Four years ago she took up quilting with the help of her daughter’s quilting machine. They trade their talents with Kathleen doing the applique by hand and her daughter doing the quilting.

Kathleen has given a few remarkable appliques away to her loved ones : one to her granddaughter in California — “Basket of Roses”; one to her grandson — “Mexican Star”; and one to her grandddaughter in college — “Lavendar Tea.”

She is currently working on a “Through the Year with Sunbonnet Sue” quilt. It has 12 appliqued squares, one for each month. The patterns are made up of pieces of material in a variety of sizes, shapes and colors. July’s square is patriotic; February’s is Valentine’s Day; September’s shows Sunbonnet Sue on her way to school … and so on.

With over 20 quilts finished and two more started, Kathleen is always flooded with new ideas and new patterns. Besides those mentioned, she has made: “Devil on the Run,” “Flower Garden” (hand quilted by Pike County Quilt Guild member Zetta Mullins), “Cabin in the Woods,” “Chain of Jewels,” “Garnet Glaze,” “Courthouse Steps,” “Maggie’s Flower Garden,” “Christmas,” “Mystery Quilt,” “Storm at Sea,” “China Blue,” “Grandmother’s Flower Garden,” “Robert’s Flower Garden,” “Folk Art Freedom,” “Cathedral Window” and “Autumn.”

Kathleen belongs to the Pike County Quilt Guild that meets at the Pike County Extension Office and has also won a prize in the guild’s Hillbilly Quilt Show, in the Miscellaneous category.

Lets wish her the very best in her embroidering career ahead!

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Some of the key highlights of the Innov-is 900D and SE350 include a backlit LCD Touch Screen, one-touch access to built-in designs including embroidery editing capabilities,  automatic Push-Button Thread Cutter, ease in cutting thread,  sixteen Built-in Languages,  precise translation of step-by-step instructions on the LCD panel,  memory Functions, embroidery Editing,  seventy Built-in Embroidery Designs and sixty-seven Built-in Stitch Functions including 10 styles of one-step, automatic buttonholes, built-in Card Slot,  popular 4″ x 4″ embroidery field and a quick-Set(TM) bobbin and Advanced Needle Threader.

The higher-featured Innov-is 900D includes the above features plus thirty-five built-in embroidery Designs based on Disney/Pixar characters,  computer connectivity for transfer of .pes files from a computer to the machine, my Custom Stitch(TM) feature, 3 sewing fonts,  62 additional decorative stitches, embroidery menu access for accessing the embroidery menu while in sewing mode to save time and plan future designs, the ability to read all embroidery cards featuring Disney/Pixar characters, protective Hard Cover and Accessory Box that fits under the free arm and a Sew Nice Pic(TM) frame.

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Most of the designs are in pes embroidery format. The website also allows users to create their own account, log in and submit their free designs along with a link back.

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The Western techniques are also influenced by the above parameters and techiques like cutwork, flipflop, corvette, mardi gras embroidery designs emerge out to the world!

In the Eastern, apart from India a treasure of traditional embroidery comes in from China.  China is the first country in the world that discovered the use of silk for hand silk embroidery.    Silkworms were domesticated as early as 5000 years ago.  The production of silk thread and fabrics gave rise to this beautiful art of embroidery. According to the classical Shangshu, the “regulations on costumes” of 4000 years ago stipulated among other things “dresses and skirts with designs and embroideries”.    In 1958 a piece of silk was found in a tomb of the state of Chu of the Warring Sates Period (475-221 B.C).  It is hand embroidered with a dragon-and-phoenix design.  More than 2000 years old, it is the earliest piece of Chinese embroidery ever unearthed.

In 2005, I wrote about Photo or Embroidery Design - Hunan Silk Embroidery. Today, silk embroidery is practised nearly all over China. The best commercial products, it is generally agreed, come from four provinces: Jiangsu (notably Suzhou), Hunan, Sichuan and Guangdong, each with its distinctive features.   Embroidered works have become highly complex and exquisite today. Take the double-face embroidered “Cat” you see next to this post, representative work of Suzhou embroidery. The artist splits the hair-thin coloured silk thread into filaments-half, quarter 1/12 or even 1/48 of its original thickness– and uses these in embroidering concealing in the process the thousands of ends and joints and making them disappear as if by magic. The finished work is a cute and mischievous-looking cat on both sides of the groundwork. The most difficult part of the job is the eyes of the cat. To give them lustre and life, silk filaments of more than 20 colours or shades have to be used.  Recently, on the basis of two-face embroidery have developed further innovations– the same design on both sides in different colours, and totally different patterns on the two faces of the same groundwork. It seems that possibilities hitherto unknown to the art are still to be explored.

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Husqvarna or Huskvarna was the name of a location in Sweden. It constituted the eastern part of Jönköping, the municipal seat of Jönköping Municipality, Sweden and had a population of about 21,500. Between 1911 and 1970 it used to be a city municipality of its own. There was a royal rifle manufacturer named after the city founded in Husqvarna in 1680 and lasted until 1757, when it was sold to private owners. It supplied the Swedish and Norwegian armies with rifles (for example, in 1870 some 10,000 rifles were finished). War time through, the same company later switched over in 1872 from crafting firearms to the production of sewing machines and bicycles.

Today, it is known as Husqvarna (it never changed the old spelling), an internationally known company with a variety of products. The machine embroidery formats that came through these sewing machines became known as the ‘HUS’ formats and is widely in use today.Secrets of Embroidery has some beautiful tutorials on Husqvarna/Viking by Carolyn Duncan. You could navigate through Tutorials on the home page and click on Husqvarna/Viking. These easy-to-understand guides prove beneficial since they enable you to harness the potential of your Designer sewing embroidery machine and gives you insights into 3D digitizing and sketch designs that form a hallmark of Huskvarna.

HUS is famous for its realistic embroidery designs and all patterns are accentuated and clear. The pussy cat portraits by Diana Kaufholz in Secrets of Embroidery display this feature (Navigate to ‘Designs by Category’ and click on Dianas Dezigns). Notice how the emotions/feelings of the cats are captured in these machine embroideries.

So, where are the freebies! You could go to Sewterific to download some cute free hus embroidery designs! The Mad flower next to this post is part of this collection.

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A quilt is a type of bedding— a bed covering composed of a quilt top and a layer of fabric for backing. The two are secured by tying which is a technique of using thread, ribbon or yarn to pass through all 3 layers of the quilt at frequent intervals. These are strong bonds and hold on even when the quilt is being washed. Most quilts are decorative and find easy uses as wall hangings apart from the normal bedding. Over the years, attempts have been made to make this quilt look more and more exotic and flowers or animals have been frequently used to add a natural touch to the hand embroidery. Appliques florals are flowery designs sewed on a separate fabric which is then stitched on to the master quilt cloth.

If you would be interested to learn this art, we have for you a masterpiece book from Bonnie Lyn McCaffery called Fantasy Floral Quilts: Creating With Silk Flowers (That Patchwork Place). This book contains step by step instructions along with beautifully photographed quilt designs to help you on your way. The quilts here are made from fabric and silk flowers and embellished with glistening threads and beads. This is not a very easy art, but Bonnie with her easy-to-understand logical instructions makes applique floral quilting a breeze.

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