Miyuki Matsumoto

‘I would like to share with you a recent creation of mine - a handmade whitework wedding ring pillow. This piece was made for my son, his wife, and their baby to celebrate their wedding, which took place in May.

It is embroidered on linen using various whitework techniques, including satin stitch and drawn thread work. The design features two birds and a heart, with soft blue and white ribbons to hold the rings.’

‘To make it more personal, I added the initials of the three family members - ‘Y’ for my son, ‘M’ for their baby, and ‘H’ for his wife - along the side of the pillow.

As a playful detail, the ‘Y’ and ‘H’ are designed to look the same even when turned upside down, and the baby's ‘M’ can be interpreted as a ‘W’ when inverted - a small symbolic gesture since she is a girl. I hope this brings a little inspiration to others who love delicate embroidery as much as I do.’

Miyuki, what a gorgeous wedding gift that will undoubtedly be cherished for many years. The personalisation is subtle, elegant and creative. Your son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter are very lucky to receive such talent and generosity from you, and this will absolutely bring some inspiration to our community; thank you for sharing this with us.

Margaret Mathers

‘I have made a Deerfield screen and a floss box and had hours of enjoyment stitching them. My husband was a cabinet maker and built the frame and box for me.

To create my design, I sticky taped 4 or 5 pieces of A4 paper together, then drew around a dinner plate 5 or 6 times, erasing half the circle on opposite sides to create the curved line. I then traced various designs from several crewel embroidery books and used only 4 shades of blue.’

‘The inspiration for the screen came from learning the history of Deerfield when doing a class at the Queensland Embroiderers’ Guild.

During the USA war when the fabric for the soldier’s uniforms was being dyed, the women of Deerfield asked for the unused, left over dye for their threads as they only received white thread from England and had to make their own colours.

After the war was over, their designs were stored away in attics unused for many years until discovered.’

‘The inspiration for my floss box design came from several embroidery books, also. I drew my initial on paper and chose various flowers then transferred the design onto silk.’

A miniature history lesson and gorgeous embroidery all in one! This is a wonderful story of inspiration, Margaret, and your process for designing the screen is fascinating. Both your embroidery and your husband’s handywork leave nothing to be desired; what a wonderful team you make.

Ligia Sophia

‘Hello from São Paulo-Brazil. This is an embroidery that I made after a trip to Provence/France. I visited the lavender fields and was mesmerized by the aroma and colours of the plants.’

‘I found this photo that was taken while I was away and as soon as I arrived home, I drew it to then embroider. I had the embroidery framed and gave it as a wedding gift to a niece. The technique, translated from Brazilian, is ‘free stitches over cotton’.

This next piece is inspired by a picture I found on the internet and immediately fell in love with.’

‘In this work I decided not to embroider all the fabric so, I tried aquarela (watercolour) to colour the background. I painted three squares of fabric and picked the one I loved best. The embroidery was done only in the main objects of the scene.’

‘The amount of thread passing through the same place in the material to form the tree caused some wrinkles in the fabric but I liked the result and framed this work to place in my wall.’

These are simply gorgeous pieces, Ligia, and beautiful sources of inspiration. Your stitching is wonderful, and it’s clear through your work how much passion you have for your embroidery. Thank you for sharing both your process and your work with us; keep up the wonderful work.

Have you recently embroidered something for a loved one’s wedding? Do you stitch designs to accompany custom frames, boxes or other display pieces? Or do you enjoy recreating photos as embroidered pieces?

Whatever you are stitching, we’d love to see it! Email photos of what you’ve created with needle and thread along with a few details about your stitching journey to news@inspirationsstudios.com