Friday, April 5, 2013

My embroidery tools and how to sew a super easy Needle book


I have quite of lot of embroidery stuff and it's hiding in tins, cupboards, baskets and project bags all around my house. However, I keep most of my floss in one place, in a IKEA drawer called HELMER. I can recommend it if you have a serious floss stash. For this 'show and tell' I only chose a few items from my tools and none are very extraordinary to be honest!

My lovely polar bear is showing just two of the many hoops I have. I have large hoops, small hoops, plastic hoops, wooden hoops, flex hoops and square frames. I am not too picky about my hoops. I use the bright cheap plastic ones for most of my embroidery and my slightly more fancy Q-snap frame for my slightly more fancy stitching.

Just like Carina, I have Thread Heaven (the small blue box) among my supplies, although I must admit I only use it to 'tame' unruly threads like metallics and satin floss. The regular pencil is to transfer embroidery designs to fabric or to directly draw designs on fabric. The pretty pink scissors is my current favourite pair, purchased at Sublime Stitching. Not just pretty but nice and sharp too. :)

As to needles: I like to have different sized and type of needles on hand.  Small sharp needles for my one thread shading projects, Milliners needles for French and Bullion Knots, needles for cross stitching etc etc.  I have many needles that for some reason are not in their original packaging anymore and I keep them in felt needle books that I make myself. Like this one.



This Needle book has an outside pocket (with cute buttons!) to keep my embroidery scissors in. I have written a 'how to' so you can sew your own Needle book. It's super simple and all hand sewn, you won't need a sewing machine or any serious sewing experience. You can download the PDF here: Simple Hand sewn Needle book with outside Pocket If you make your own Needle book please share it in the &Stitches Flickr group we'd love to see it!

Hope you have enjoyed the peeks in our Embroidery Tool Kits. Soon we might want to see yours too... (Julie will tell you all about that soon!)

1 comment:

  1. I also have alot of embroidery items, but I keep most of them (more than 40) in my grab and go embroidery kit. None of mine are extraordinary either, just helpful, which to me is more important to me than anything else. I have several sizes of hoop also, but they are all wooden. Personally I can't stand the plastic ones, they allow the fabric to slip more than I like, the wooden ones have more internal traction (less smooth than plastic) so to speak. I also have a box of Thread Heaven, but my use of it is also limited. When I use it most is when I am embroidering in the car in the evenings, and light is limited, it allows me to thread the needles with fewer hassels. I also have alot of needles, though I have never found needle books to be very useful, since I inherited most of my needles from my granmother when her arthritis got too bad for her to sew anymore. She gave them to me back in the 80's and they (some still are) in a tube, and I couldn't tell anyone what size most of them are if my life depended on it. :-) I just know which ones I like for what I am doing.

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