Welcome to my first blog.

First I'd like to introduce myself. I'm the buyer for the Needlecrafts with Cross Stitch book club in England. I started working for Readers' Union, the book club division of David & Charles in 1985 and have worked in many departments since then. In 1998 I left for a few years but it didn't take long for me to come back.

In my future blogs I'll be telling you what's new in the world of Needlecraft.

I was always generally interested in antique needlework tools, but my interest never exceeded my enthusiasm for actually doing needlework. Maybe it's just my mania for collecting things in general, but lately I've become more and more interested in old tools and notions. I haven't actually purchased anything yet, but I wander with envy through the many wonderful items on eBay, daring myself to buy something. (If you saw my apartment, you'd understand why I'm hesitant to start any more collections of anything.)

Lately I've been mildly obsessed with chatelaines, those pins or belt clips ladies once used to hold all their necessary items hooked onto chains (like scissors, needlecases, pincushions, and more). Old and new, the fabulous silver chatelaines are prohibitively expensive, although there are excellent patterns for making chatelaines in cross stitch, hardanger, crocheting, and quilting. I did buy a bunch of cheap reproduction pieces on discount at a craft store and came up with my own version, but that's a different story (which I'll share eventually).

What I want to share today is an article called "Antique Sewing & Needlework Tools" by Gloria Brunning. If you're interested in antique needlework tools, you'll enjoy this piece, which includes a gallery of items, many made of bone, including bodkins, lucets, and cotton barrels. If any of these terms are unfamiliar to you, take a look at Brunning's photos and commentary.

This article is featured on www.antiquequiltdating.com, "New Pathways Into Quilt History," by quilt historian and antique quilt collector Kimberly Wulfert. Even if quilting isn't your area of needlework interest, don't overlook this site packed with material both informative and enjoyable!

--Nancy

NOTE: We were having technical difficulties on Friday and over the weekend. I did post this on Friday, but it kept going to my personal admin blog instead of the category blog. I think the bugs have been chased out and it's working properly now.

Mary Corbett's Needle'NThread site is subtitled "Tips, Tricks, and Great Resources for Hand Embroidery." It's all that and more! I encourage you to look all around the site, from Mary's blog to her gallery to her free patterns page. What I want to focus on today is her Video Library of Hand-Embroidery Stitches.

I watched several of these video tutorials, and they're wonderful. Brief, clear, easy to follow, with the camera focused close on just Mary's hands, the needle and thread, and the fabric, with Mary's careful explanation accompanying her demonstration of the stitches. (I didn't try to view these with my home dial-up system, but on broadband they loaded almost instantaneously and played beautifully.)

As an added extra-special bonus, Mary provides a how-to article, with photos, of how she creates and films her tutorials.

She says she's always adding new tutorials, so be sure to check back at Needle'NThread often! It should definitely be bookmarked as a "must" site for all embroidery enthusiasts.

--Nancy

Hi, everyone. At last, this is the second member of the Cross Stitch & Needle Arts team dropping in to let you know what has been keeping me busy this week. My name is Cheryl and I work as a senior commissioning editor at David & Charles Publishers in the United Kingdom. I specialise in commissioning the cross stitch list, working with a very talented group of authors from Britain, the USA and Australia to bring our readers the best cross stitch designs we can. We have eight books publishing this year covering a wide range of subjects including fantasy, Christmas, cute teddies and classic art nouveau style. I think we offer a pretty diverse list, but if you think we are missing something, I'd love to hear what you would like to see published.

I've just returned from the UK's biggest trade show this week, which took place at the NEC conference centre near Birmingham. I like to think of Craft, Hobby and Stitch--or Stitches as you may commonly hear it referred to--as the UK's one-twelfth scale version of CHA, that trade craft show to end all trade craft shows that has only just recently concluded at Anaheim, California. Unfortunately, as occasionally happens, these two great shows fell very close together this year. CHA ended Wednesday 13^th February and Stitches began on Sunday 17^th February, and, as a consequence, there were a good few visitors, demonstrators, and exhibitors at Stitches battling against jet lag, fighting a desperate urge for a 5-minute power nap. (Why resist, say I.) But those who made the trip to both shows were undoubtedly well rewarded. Stitches just seems to get bigger each year, now taking up two of the NEC's halls, and demanding two days of my time to ensure I see everything there is to see. What I love about this annual trade show is that although you get the odd craft cluster (Row A, for example, is cross stitch aisle, Row N, sewing textiles) you'll mostly find all the crafts mixed up together, which makes for a very interesting show experience.  A one-aisle wander can expose you to a giddy range of crafts and products, from ceramic painting to cross stitching, from mohair to mosaics.

There was much to admire and inspire at the show, and favourites for me included Amanda Loveseed's Cut Thru' cross stitch designs produced by Bothy Threads. My absolute favourite is the Lighthouse design--all that wonderful detail including the mermaid in the lighthouse keeper's bath! Those who love historical sampler designs should check out the Historical Sampler Company's latest offerings. I love their use of vibrant colours in their traditional cross stitch and needlepoint heirloom-style samplers, and new for 2008 is a wonderful Cup Cake design, a really modern twist for sampler design. Let me know what you think.

--Cheryl

For today's Friday Needlework Site of the Week I offer you the Antique Pattern Library. If you haven't seen it yet, it will blow you away!

Basically, antique needlework books are scanned and posted online--and the selections are amazing. Although the books are in the public domain, the scans are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license. This means you can download and use the patterns for free, although there are a few "conditions of use" that are of interest if you plan to make and sell work from these patterns. (It's nothing overly complicated; it's all spelled out on the home page, so take a look.)

The patterns are in PDF format, so you'll need Acrobat; and if you have dial-up, loading the books may take awhile. But the wait is worth it.

The site offers a thorough and helpful catalog page listing every title along with a description that includes the needlework techniques covered in the book. (As the instructions point out, you can use your "Find" function to locate a specific technique that interests you. It's also fun simply to browse.)

Seemingly every type of embroidery is covered, plus crochet, knitting, tatting and other lacemaking techniques, and even a few references to quilting. Projects and patterns by such luminaries as Orr, Dillmont, Beeton, Priscilla Publishing, and Needlecraft present such a trove of gorgeous, intriguing designs that you literally won't know which to pick first.

Remember these are antique designs and patterns, reflecting everything from 19th century fashion to art noveau designs and 1920s needle arts. Instructions and stitches may vary from what is commonly used today, so keep that in mind. However, many charts are adaptable to various techniques (a filet crochet chart could be used for pattern knitting, cross-stitch, or beading, for example).

Check it out--and have a great time exploring

--Nancy