All You've Ever Wanted To Know About Embroidery

What is Embroidery?

Embroidery is decorative needlework used on clothing and other textiles. The word embroidery may come from two different places, one a Frankish word meaning braid, the other a Germanic word meaning border or edge. There are many different kinds of embroidery in the world and there is no clear concept of who may have done the first embroidery in the world. An art form with a long history in almost every culture the many styles and variations that have been created throughout the years are not surprising. However, most kinds of embroidery fall into one of two main categories.

Two Main Categories of Embroidery

There are two main categories of embroidery. The first, known as counted-thread embroidery includes styles like cross-stitch and needlepoint. All counted-thread embroidery is made by counting the individual threads of the canvas being embroidered when placing a stitch. Even textured fabrics like cotton or linen are usually used along with cotton embroidery floss to reproduce grid like patterns and pictures.

The second kind is known as free embroidery. Unlike counted-thread embroidery, free embroidery does not pay attention to the individual threads of the canvas. Instead it is able to spray freely across fabric, allowing for more realistic and less constrained designs. Chinese embroidery is an example of free embroidery.

Embroidery Embellishments

There are many different kinds of decorative stitches. Some of the most commonly used stitches are the straight stitch, the cross stitch and the knot stitch.

A straight stitch goes up and down through fabric and will tend to move in a single direction. Cross stitching is usually done by creating a series of diagonal lines going one way and then going back along the line to create turn each angled stitch into an individual x.

Knot stitches are made by wrapping thread around a needle while it moves through the fabric. The result is a tiny nub on the upper side of the fabric. It is used frequently as the center point of a flower.

Intricate embroidery has long been a sign of wealth. The number of jewels and decorations on individual?s apparel is a time-honored sign of power and respectability. Embroidery can be done with a wide range of textiles and can be embellished with almost any material. Beads, charms and other ornaments made of glass, metal, plastic and wooden can all be incorporated into embroidery. There are practically an unlimited number of ways to create embroidery and just as many accent pieces can be used for additional embellishments.

Art or Craft

Creating beautiful embroidery is both a handcraft and an art. Many kinds of embroidery can be done well after only a little practice. Many areas in the world use embroidery styles that are distinct to their locale. A study of the many kinds of embroidery shows how time and fashion has created new styles of embroidery to take advantage of modern innovations. While there are some people who use complex embroidery machines to speed up the process of embroidery, the age-old hobby will always be of interest and the finest results of the art will always be in demand. Supplies for most kinds of embroidery are easy to find at both craft supplies and fabric stores.

Samantha Brown enjoys Embroidery in her free time when she can find it. To learn more about the craft visit her Embroidery Web site http://www.embroideryhowto.com today.

How to judge Chinese Suzhou Embroidery?

Chinese Suzhou embroidery is a traditional art which has a high requirement on hand skills. A piece of good Suzhou embroidery is a perfect combination of techniques and art, the quality of effect in the artwork becomes a criteria in judging Suzhou Embroidery. Normally we can tell from the following criteria.

1. To judge the concept of the whole picture, in present market, most of the concepts of pictures are similar, so we can tell creative embroidery form ordinary ones.

2. The fineness of the needlework: it plays the most important role in a picture. It should be very clear where the thread should be thick and where it should be thin, and they should hide the thread head and knot as well.

In order to make very fine embroidery, the thread must be divided into thinner ones. Splitting the silk thread is one of the traditional techniques of Chinese Suzhou embroidery, that means to divide the thread into several strands. Like half or a quarter of the original thickness, or even thinner. If you want to embroider the tail of golden fish, you should use very thin silk strands to express a sense of lightness and transparency. The silk strand used for the body of a fish should be thicker, giving people a sense of weight. If you want to embroider a stone, or a tree trunk, you must use thick thread, and a more random pattern. And for the stitching of a cat, a color change must be used for its fur, then the finished fur of the cat will be as vivid as real cat fur.

The last key point is that the needlework should be dense. The low quality embroidery is just printing the base picture, then matching it with several threads with similar color, and it will give people the impression of embroidery if you stand far away from the picture. But if you look at it carefully, you will find the pattern in the back.( Since the picture is printed, and after a period of time, the color of the ink will fade, it doesn't last long.) This kind of embroidery is fake.

An embroidery with high art value also has the base picture, but no matter how you check the picture, you will never find it on the base. The base picture has been covered by silk thread.( Good embroidery is usually made by hand. The procedure of Mechanical Graphing and manual graphing is different . Mechanical Graphing Computer jets the picture, then fixes it in the supporting frame. And because silk is quite flexible, it is easy to be deformed when fixed into the frame. But manual embroidery is different , it is fixed into a drawing frame first, then they embroider it. So it's impossible to deform. The high value embroidery does not only need the embroidering technique, but also they need the craftsmen knowledge of painting. Because there is no base picture , only a profile of the picture, for color they need the talent of the craftsman. So a good piece of Chinese Suzhou embroidery is not only imitation, but also includes the talent of the craftsman.

The disordered stitching embroidery has a special requirements on the thickness of thread, but also thread angle is critical. To use the color of the thread to show the bright and dark sides of the picture, they need the crafts man to have a deep understanding of the application of color.

3. The process of the artwork's color and art effect. That means the brightness and color should match well, and transition naturally. Such as an embroidered cat, the most difficult part is the pair of eyes. The craftsman needs more than twenty different colors to transition from one color to another, making the eyes alive and vivid. An embroidery with high value should have a beautiful pattern, fine needlework, elegant colors, and deep meaning.

This articles was written by Susan Yip, the co-owner of Su Embroidery Art Studio which offers silk paintings entirely hand embroidered. For more articles on Chinese silk embroidery, please visit http://www.suembroidery.com