How to Teach Yourself Cutwork Embroidery

Book excerpt: Table of Contents Introduction Embroidered Collar Table Mat design More Center Piece and Border Designs Cutting Away the Extra Fabric Other Tips Practice Fruit Designs Some Floral Designs Doily Design Version 2 Version 3 Practice Flowers and Buttonhole Stitch Conclusion Author Bio Publisher Introduction Cutwork embroidery, is one of the embroidery skills, techniques, and art forms, which have evolved down the ages, in different forms like Renaissance embroidery, Richelieu embroidery, and also broderie anglaise. Cutwork embroidery actually started with ordinary embroidery done in what is called blanket stitch, over marked outlines, so that the picture outline could show up clearly in the final picture as a clearly demarcated design on a cloth background. Later on, ladies doing fine embroidery on their panels, as well as nuns in convents in France and Italy, in the 12th century began to cut away portions of the fabric, and so cutwork embroidery was born. When I was a child, and was given a piece of future cutwork embroidery to do by my grandmother to keep me busy and occupied during the hot summer afternoons – it was either that, to prevent me from running out in the hot midday sun or take a 4 hour siesta – I decided that a siesta was infinitely preferable to doing fine needlework, with buttonhole stitches all over a silly design. And after the design was finished, my grandmother used to take out her beautiful golden scissors, shaped like a swan and cut out the fabric very carefully, so that there were empty holes in the fabric, connected with embroidered lines of needlework.