What Are You Stitching?

This week we’re bringing you some projects to enjoy that are as unique as they are beautiful… 

‘My name is Lynn Gibson from Corlette NSW, Australia and during isolation I reminisced over the photos I had taken when my husband and I were on an overseas holiday. We had visited a local Basilica, where many beautiful stained-glass windows could be seen.’

‘I decided to create a stained-glass window in Casalguidi Style technique, and I chose this particular window as it showed so much beauty with its architecture. I studied how I could interpret the design into a piece of embroidery. This is my finished piece, it is 34cm high and 16cm wide.’

Wow, Lynn! What a beautiful example of how needlework can be used to interpret a scene one enjoys. The fantastic architecture took us right to the Basilica and we can imagine the sun streaming through your wonderfully stitched window arches. Love the technique, love the colours, love everything! 

‘I did it! Maria Elide Melani’s ‘Stitches from the Heart’ mentioned in All Stitched Up! issue #388.’

‘I found 22ct fabric but as you can see the threads are not as fine as the Bissone linen Maria used. I didn’t realise how very different it would end up. Stitching the pattern was not a problem but, doing the rolled hem finishing was very difficult.

This fabric was very stiff and didn’t roll well. I had to adjust the threads as I couldn’t find the crochet cotton weights. I used #5 perlé for the pattern, #40 crochet thread for the four-sided stitch and other edge stitches for the front. I switched to #8 perlé when I did the back and for all the crochet work.

‘This was a very interesting and challenging drawn thread technique – someday I would like to try the Bissone linen.’

Tina, this is an amazing recreation of Maria Elide Melani’s design. Your ingenuity and persistence with the technique is a real credit to you and we thoroughly enjoyed seeing the results of your experimentation with different fabrics and threads. Well done! 

‘My stitching journey started in 2020 when I embroidered a monstrance cover for our parochial vicar, the first embroidery project I had attempted in 40+ years, outside of cross stitch.’

‘I used free designs available at Mary Corbet’s Needle ‘n Thread website and relied on her instructional videos to help me with the stitches. The cover is Italian silk satin and I used cotton floss for the stitching.

We are delighted to hear the project spurred you into a year of stitching, Joan. The cover is wonderfully executed, and we look forward to seeing what you stitch next!

Have the architectural features of a building influenced your stitching? Or design elements from history? Or perhaps monuments visited on travels have inspired your work?

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