Comments on: What are your favorite hand sewing resources?

By: carolyn

carolyn — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 01:43:47 +0000

Well I grew up with sewing (my mother was a seamstress and we had a little sweatshop in our basement) but I never learned a lick. My parents were adamant that I never learn daily living skills and had me studying textbooks all the time. I think their plans were to have me be some kind of doctor, business person and never do any kind of housework and/ or marry a rich man and be able to afford to have hired help. Ok everything backfired. I am a chosen stay at home mom with 7 kids whose husband is a carpenter. I rent a house on a horse ranch and both of my parents are keeling over wondering what went wrong. Ok so I am having to learn everything by scratch. So far the resources I have used to learn things about crafts or home ec. is Training Our Daughters to be Keepers At Home by Mrs. Craig (Ann) Ward and Lessons in Responsiblity for Girls from Pearables. I have learned to cross-stitch, hand embroider, latchhook and knit so far. I hand sew mostly. I do have a sewing machine but don;t know how to thread it. I will eventually. Just been busy raising kids for awhile now.

By: Kristin

Kristin — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 20:54:29 +0000

My greatest resources are my Mom and Grandma. When ever I get stuck I just give one of them a call and if they don’t know they call the other one to find out.

By: Madrona Tree

Madrona Tree — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 20:03:58 +0000

I have really appreciated the hand sewing month posts. It is inspiring me to pick up the cross-stitch stocking I started for my daughter last fall… hopefully I can finish it by Christmas this year!

By: Elizabeth

Elizabeth — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 15:24:34 +0000

This is a fairly specific one, but there’s a great tutorial for cathedral window quilts here that I just found yesterday:

http://hyena-in-petticoats.blogspot.com/2007/08/cathedral-window-quilt-tutorial.html

By: willownt

willownt — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 04:03:10 +0000

I like Lucinda Ganderton’s Stitch Sampler for embroidery and cross-stich (ISBN 0789446286) and the Reader’s Digest sewing book as a good all around resource. Some illustrations in Japanese craft books assume you’ll be sewing by hand and have very brief summaries of stitches. Books like Kumiko Sudo’s Omiyage (ISBN 0809229099), which is in English, provide inspiration — especially when you realize that sewing by hand is often quicker, neater, and infinitely more portable — and thus more likely to get done — than that involving a machine.

I’ve recently come across some fantastic instructional books on Google Books, aimed at teachers of needlecraft. Examples are “Elementary Needlework: A Suggestive Manual for Sewing in Kindergarten and Primary Schools” (http://books.google.com/books?id=iIAWAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover) by Kate Foster, which has some amazing ideas about illustrating geometric patterns from numerous world cultures, and “When Mother Lets Us Sew” by Virginia Ralston (http://books.google.com/books?id=mJ8EAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover), whose name and book dedication truly are incomparable, but also neatly presents nine common hand stitches and a host of little projects to make with them. Poking around for others on Google Books was quite fun, and I do recommend it.

But really the most inspiring resource has been my own grandmother and now deceased great-aunt (sisters) who had their own very different styles of sewing and crafting. I wish I had the patience to work as hard as have they.

By: Melna

Melna — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 06:06:12 +0000

My mom taught me the basic, but I love: http://www.stitchstitch.info/, also; http://appareldesigns.blogspot.com/ and http://www.knitting-and.com/embroidery/index.html, I can’t live without it: http://www.needlenthread.com/ and http://deepashome.blogspot.com/, check them out, beautiful!!!!!, love everybody.

By: kriswithmany

kriswithmany — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 02:29:31 +0000

I took a sewing class from a community college a few years ago. They started with hand sewing. We had to create a binder of all the techniques we learned. That binder is so precious!

By: Denise Leavens

Denise Leavens — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 23:53:48 +0000

I found what looks to be a very comprehensive stitchery guide that has everything from basic embroidery stitches to how to make an animal nose and the turkey stitch-which I find perfect for the felt Llama I made. The FREE Stitching Guide is from Windflower Embroidery and comes in a 25 page pdf format with clear instructions and diagrams. The link:http://www.windflowerembroidery.com/catalog/articles.php?tPath=10

By: Emily

Emily — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 17:27:23 +0000

I am really quite new to embriodery…but I second? third? eighth? what people have said about the Video Library of Stitches at http://www.needlenthread.com/. I’m a visual learner, so it really helps me to see the stitch in action! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched one of those videos and had that “Aha, so that’s how you do it” light bulb moment. Past that, my infinitely patient and craftier-than-I friends are my most valuable resource.

Great links – so excited to peruse them all!

By: Kirstin Juul

Kirstin Juul — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 16:00:28 +0000

I use a couple of different books. Basic Embroidery copyright 1986 published by Hihon Vogue. This book is illustrated with colorful pictures and numbered instructions, which makes it a great beginner book.
I also use a little book that I found in my grandmothers stash of stuff that was published by Coats & Clark in 1965 called 100 Embroidery Stitches. She bought it for 35 cents!