April A to Z Blogging Challenge Day 5...Today's Blog Brought to You by the Letter "E"

Yay, break from blogging tomorrow, since it's Sunday.  Well, technically, I get a break today too because I have a guest blogger!  My mom, Linda, graciously agreed to write a little bit for me about embroidery since I know absolutely nothing about it.  If I were to write today's blog, it would be short and simple: "My mom does embroidery.  It's pretty.  See?"  She didn't really want to write it, but I persuaded her, as I often do.  So, give her some love in the comments!  Her work is viewable on our site and some is available in our Etsy shop and we will be adding personalized items in the future.  Please contact us if you need to commission any embroidery work and we will send you a quote and give you a custom listing.

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I loved doing hand embroidery, after I learned the basics.  It would relax me.  It took my mind off whatever the worries and cares of the day were.  I learned needlepoint first, with a needlepoint kit given to me by my mother-in-law.  Funny thing about that first piece, I did all the stitches backwards.  lol  They are supposed to slant to the right "/".  All mine on that first piece slanted to the left "\".  I discovered that about halfway through that first piece, but was not about to pick out all that work and start over, so I just kept on doing it wrong!  After needlepoint, it was easier to learn cross stitch, because I just had to make an X. Actual embroidery is harder.  I don't do satin stitches all that good.  The problem with doing a big embroidery piece, if you don't give it away, you can't get enough money out of it by selling it.  The last big piece I did, I worked on it on and off for two years.  After that much time invested in a piece, you find it hard to part with it.  Now my arthritis is making it harder and more painful to do hand embroidery.  

My daughter, Robin, first suggested the embroidery machine for decorating my granddaughters' clothes.  I, as always, went overboard and bought a big one.  I started off embroidering on fleece blankets, and I loved doing that.  I made them for every birthday and for Christmas.  It seems on the surface to be easy.  You sit back and let the machine do the work. However, there is more to it than that.   First, you have to figure out which stabilizer to use on the back of the material you are embroidering.  You use soft stabilizer on clothing and blankets.  Stiffer stabilizer on things that would not be worn, like the curtains I made for my granddaughters.  Then you make the design larger or smaller to fit.  Then you gather all the colors of thread you will use in the design.  You have to monitor the sewing, to make sure nothing goes wrong, like broken needles, or running out of bobbin thread, or worse, some of the folds of material getting caught in the embroidery.  Then you change the colors as they are needed.  The end results are more detailed than I could ever get with hand embroidery.  I still love to do both hand and machine embroidery.  It is still relaxing and takes my mind off of problems of the day.

~ Robin ~