Progress report on the wool embroidery

Outlining a flower

A bit more on the Swedish wool embroidery today. The start of this wool embroidery wasn’t a very good one but now you can see the progress. Once the outlines are finished I am starting to fill the flower with different shades of pink.

Filling the middle

Certain parts are looking really nice, smooth and even, other stitches not so much. They look like they were made by a embroidery newbie. I think that is okay because I am a beginner at embroidery. I am not sure exactly how to do this the best way but I am learning as I go a long. I don’t like ripping stitches up so I am letting my little mistakes stay down. I move forward instead of looking back.

Wool inspiration flowers
This embroidered pillow, that I am looking at as I sew, is made in 1832. The stitching is by someone a wee bit more experienced than I am. It can be seen in the Swedish book called Yllebroderier published by Hemslöjden, my inspiration right now as I have mentioned already.

Also on my table today, my wool pin cushion;

Pin cushion from Maria
It is made by my friend Maria a few years back when we both were into wool embroidery. She made a couple of different little things and a bird pillow. I made a big pillow too, wool floss on white linen. I need to blog it sometime, it is really cute!

Embroidery inspiration

A note to self: I want to try the raised herringbone stitch and the loop stitch that Sarah Whittle describes on her blog at great length.

Karin has a great tutorial (in Swedish) on how to transfer a pattern from paper to your fabric by the painted dots method, it is so clear that you understand it just by looking at the images! I knew how to do this, I am just so lazy…

The gallery of Rebecca Ringquist is colorful and very inspirational. I’ve been looking at her work several times since I found her website.

Have a great day!

14 Responses

  1. Interesting post.
    Yesterday I saw some pillows in one of ikea shops here in Italy, they were embroidered with similar tecniques and subjects. I found them really beautiful, but I can’t imagine they were inspired by traditional swedish art/craft.
    I also made some dreams about making that pillows, but, well, I prefer reading about your progress :)

    Maria’s pincushion is lovely!!!

  2. This type of embroidery is mostly new to me. I really like the piece that you are working on at present. The little pillow that your friend made is especially cute too.

    I look forward to following along as I learn to embroider.

  3. beautiful AND inspiring!! looking forward to the finished result :)

    glad you had a joyful christmas!! happy new year to you!! it is always a pleasure to stop here and see what you’re doing even if i don’t always let you know i’m here. xxx

  4. Oj vad fint det blir v?l ylle broderier nu till v?ren 2011.
    min engelska ?r d?lig s? det f?r duga med svenska.
    ha det bra och kom nu med nya ide?r ………………

  5. Thanks for your comments! :-)
    Margot, det g?r lika bra att kommentera p? svenska, jag hajjar ju b?da. Hoppas du ocks? broderar flitigt, fast det tvivlar jag inte p?. Du ?r v?l st?ndigt syende eller stickande… :-) God forts?ttning.

  6. I love embroidery, and seriously need to do more (rather than just doodle patterns)! I typically find myself ripping out a fair number of stitches, though.

  7. I love this embroidery. It is of such interest to me to see a pattern from the 1800’s inspiring a modern piece. Also, I’m so glad to read that you are moving forward, not back, and leaving in imperfect stitches. I sometimes have trouble with that!

  8. You are going to find that once your embroidery is completed, those few stitches you are not happy with now will blend in and make no difference in the beauty of the piece. Wool embroidery – has always been my great love – I love how it feels and how forgiving it can be. Sadly it seems to have fallen out of fashion in this country and it is very hard to find wool embroidery thread.

    Can’t wait til you are done!

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