Needle and Thread

Needle and Thread Welcome to our creative corner for needlework enthusiasts! Join us and bring your ideas to life!

From embroidery to sewing and everything in between, discover inspiring projects, helpful tips, and a vibrant community passionate about needles and threads.

In 2011, I decided to knit something giant. But I didn’t really know where to start. There were no tutorials available, ...
01/28/2025

In 2011, I decided to knit something giant. But I didn’t really know where to start. There were no tutorials available, so I was flying blind.

First, I bought six pounds of unspun wool roving, then I went to the hardware store and bought broomsticks to act as knitting needles. When the broomsticks were too small, I went back and bought 1.5″ diameter PVC pipe. I turned each five-foot length of pipe into “knitting needles” by adding duct-tape tips, and just started knitting. A few hours later, I had my Giganto-Blanket.

When I posted a video of myself knitting the blanket, I was suddenly getting a lot of requests for the pattern. So I wrote up the Giganto-Blanket pattern and put it up online, and now I even sell the finished blankets on Etsy.

No, I’m Not Thumbelina. I Just Knit With Giant Needles And Yarn

For a dress that you'll (hopefully) wear only once in your life, wedding dresses can be very expensive, prompting a lot ...
01/28/2025

For a dress that you'll (hopefully) wear only once in your life, wedding dresses can be very expensive, prompting a lot of brides to hunt for ways to save some money. Sometimes, things work out, but other times, the dress can leave a LOT to be desired! These images show some of the worst dresses that brides and bridesmaids have received when trying to save!

If you've ever been let down when ordering a dress online, we'd love to see a comparison of your expectations and the results.

Ads Versus Reality: 32 Disappointing Wedding Dresses

Not able to walk on her own feet anymore or go outside due to her limited mobility, Edna Vicentini Alves decided to enjo...
01/28/2025

Not able to walk on her own feet anymore or go outside due to her limited mobility, Edna Vicentini Alves decided to enjoy her time by sitting at home embroidering a wide range of items to help animals in need.

The 91-year old Brazilian has been donating not only her work, but also all the embroidery material to help sponsoring projects for neutering and feeding cats and dogs; educating people, and promoting adoption. She has already sold over 200 embroidered items.

Living in Sao Paulo, Brazil, she gets her daughter to help her by buying all the materials needed for embroidering. Her granddaughter, who lives in Toronto, takes the embroidered items and sells them to friends and animal lovers in Canada.

Along with Zen, her cage-free cockatiel, she spends around 10 hours per day creating new embroidery patterns and making sure that colors are well matched.

91 Year-old Brazilian Lady Embroiders To Help Animals In Need

Embroidery art often seeks to mimic nature, but Australian visual artist Meredith Woolnough has a special technique we’v...
01/28/2025

Embroidery art often seeks to mimic nature, but Australian visual artist Meredith Woolnough has a special technique we’ve never seen before. By using water-soluble fabric, her beautiful embroidery, which is inspired by nature’s most graceful forms, gains a new dimension of lightness and delicacy.

First, she traces a natural form onto her water-soluble fabric. Then, once she has embroidered her art onto the fabric and dissolved it, she mounts the resulting artwork on a piece of paper, a wall, or whatever other format the artwork demands. Some are even suspended in clear resin or framed. And she does it all with a regular domestic sewing machine!

Check out Woolnough’s blog, which has more of her art as well as tips and tricks for people looking to embroider their own nature art. You can also learn more about how she makes her embroidery by reading her interview with Bored Panda below the images!

Artist Uses Home Sewing Machine To Capture Nature’s Most Delicate Forms With Embroidery

Chloe Giordano, a talented illustrator and embroiderer in Oxford, England, creates tiny embroidered animals that are ful...
01/28/2025

Chloe Giordano, a talented illustrator and embroiderer in Oxford, England, creates tiny embroidered animals that are full of texture and life.

What’s striking about her embroidered pieces, besides her painstaking attention to these animals’ rich colors, is their size. Most of these animals are not much larger than a thimble, which puts the amazing detail and color of her work into perspective.

If you like what you see, check out Giordano’s Tumblr to see more. She also creates beautiful 3D embroidered plushies that are also worth seeing

Beautiful Tiny Animals Embroidered By Chloe Giordano

In an amazing study of masterful craftsmanship and delicacy, Hillary Fayle, a student of embroidery art, has created a s...
01/28/2025

In an amazing study of masterful craftsmanship and delicacy, Hillary Fayle, a student of embroidery art, has created a series of leaves that have been cut and embroidered with exquisite and delicate decorative patterns.

She starts by coating each leaf in a non-toxic preservative that stiffens them up and protects them. Then, she cuts them into various forms and embroiders them or simply puts various embroidery stitches them onto their uncut surfaces. “I generally try to use renewable, sustainable, and environmentally friendly materials for my unique art, so this was an obvious choice,” explains the artist.

Besides her astounding leaf artworks, she has plenty more creative ideas and also creates amazing leaf-cutting designs, a few of which you can see here as well. Her website, full of this incredibly detailed art, is definitely worth checking out!

Embroidered Leaf Art By Hillary Fayle

The embroidery art is known for having remained largely unchanged since its ancient origins, but even this ancient handi...
01/28/2025

The embroidery art is known for having remained largely unchanged since its ancient origins, but even this ancient handicraft has room for innovation. Peruvian embroiderer and artist Ana Teresa Barboza create beautiful landscapes that spill out of their wooden frames, using threads of various sizes, colors, and lengths to invade our world.

Barboza tends to focus on the human body in her unique art, but this Suspension series explores our relationship with nature; “Both embroidery and crocheting are techniques that require time. I use these techniques in order to make a connection between manual work and the beauty of nature; creating thread structures similar to the structures that make a plant, for example,“ she told Le Fil Conducteur.

Now scroll down below and check the amazing embroidery patterns for yourself. WHich one of these beautiful artworks would you like to own?

Artist Creates Landscape Embroidery Art That Leaps Out Of Its Frames

Mr. Finch, a reserved artist in England who goes only by this name, creates adorable animals and woodland plants that se...
01/28/2025

Mr. Finch, a reserved artist in England who goes only by this name, creates adorable animals and woodland plants that seem to have come right out of old English fables.

Mr. Finch, who is self-taught, sews his fantastic creations out of reused and recycled vintage fabrics. “It’s a joy to hunt for things for my work,” he explains. “The lost, found and forgotten all have places in what I make. Most of my pieces use recycled materials, not only as an ethical statement, but I believe that textile recycling adds more authenticity and charm.”

His unique artworks all depict creatures or plants – hares, spiders, and mushrooms are recurring characters in his dream-like pieces. “My main inspirations come from nature and often I return to certain ideas through sewing patterns again and again. Flowers, insects and birds really fascinate me with their amazing life cycles and extraordinary nests and behavior.”

His pieces are storied indeed – not only because of the vintage textiles that he uses but because of the British folktales and fabled that he is inspired by as well. “British folklore is also so beautifully rich in fabulous stories and warnings and never ceases to be at the heart of what I make. Shapeshifting witches, moon-gazing hares, fantasy animals, and a smartly dressed devil ready to invite you to stray from the path. ”

Self-Taught Artist Creates Fairytale Flora And Fauna From Vintage Fabrics

Fashion and the Internet have collided spectacularly in this series of awesome embroidered cat shirts by Japanese embroi...
01/28/2025

Fashion and the Internet have collided spectacularly in this series of awesome embroidered cat shirts by Japanese embroidery artist Hiroko Kubota. The cute kitties, embroidered with great skill and detail, are an unexpected and interesting manifestation of the Internet’s obsession with cats.

In an interview with spoon-tamago.com, Kubota explained that the idea for these shirts happened to come from her son. Because he is of a smaller build, most store-bought clothes wouldn’t fit him, so she often found herself having to make him clothing. At her son’s request, she also began embroidering the shirts with cats, mostly peeking out from the breast pocket.

After posting pictures of the shirts online, they went viral The majority of her shirts have already sold out, $250-300 price tag notwithstanding. As an excellent embroiderer, she has a ton of other great non-cat-related works as well, all of which can be found on her Etsy store.

Embroidered Cat Shirts By Hiroko Kubota Go Viral And Sell Like Hot Cakes

Jo Hamilton, a Portland-based artist, creates realistic images of people and her environment using the unexpectedly dome...
01/28/2025

Jo Hamilton, a Portland-based artist, creates realistic images of people and her environment using the unexpectedly domestic medium of crochet. Her formative training at the Glasgow School of Art was in painting and drawing but, by her own admission, she was never entirely comfortable with the traditional approach.

“My house is filled with balls of yarn, all arranged by colour on shelves. I can pull them out as I need them for my palate. A portrait can take anything up to forty or fifty hours, but I haven’t actually counted, and I spend just as much time looking as actually crocheting. The pieces evolve from the inside out. I make no graphs, plans or charts; it’s a row-by-row organic process in which I don’t always know the outcome, but have learned to trust my way of working,” says the artist.

Her method of working is more like a painter with their box of paints than a person taking out their crochet for a few hours of relaxation.

Realistic Crocheted Portraits By Jo Hamilton

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