Stress Relief Through Embroidery And Cross Stitch

We all lead very busy lives in today's modern world, so why am I suggesting that you should seriously do what was once considered just a genteel activity for aristocratic ladies? Those of us who work in offices, retail or other inside careers need physical activity to keep up our health. But there are times when the gym circuits, the weights or the running don't take away the stress of meetings, demanding customers or exacting managers. Often the body does not need any more excitement or exercise, but the mind will not stop buzzing. Or how about the times when you are stressed out but you cannot exercise due to geographical, injury or time constraints?

At these times, the rhythms of simple stitching, watching the pattern grow stitch by stitch, is very soothing. Embroideries do not have to be large works involving thousands of stitches, working a small bookmark or embellishing a handkerchief will take your mind away from the day?s anxieties and provide a wonderful sense of achievement when finished.

Embroidery is also very forgiving; it can be picked up, worked on for a brief time then put down again. You do not need a large workshop or bulky equipment. In fact, small pieces can be tucked into your handbag for working on when traveling. It is usually an in-expensive activity, only needing a few skeins of thread, some remnants of cloth and a needle. Of course you can work with fine silks and pure gold threads if your budget allows!

The technical skills to start are neither complex nor difficult to learn. Simple cross stitch and back stitch are the basis of many wonderful designs but only take a few minutes to learn. Concentrating on stitching evenly, counting the stitches or covering a printed design calms a tense mind and allows you to put your worries into perspective. You may even find that concentrating on the stitching has allowed the back of your mind to work on your problem without stress.

There are lots of simple and quick to do cross-stitch samplers available, you may also develop your skills to complete modern designs using sophisticated shading and differing types of threads. Your interests may lead you to exploring the full range of counted thread techniques developed over the centuries or even move from counting to totally free form stitching of beautiful textures.

Embroidery can be as simple or as refined as you wish, but in all cases it will let you escape from the tensions of our everyday working lives.

Annette Garcia is an embroidery enthusiast with a day-job of managing projects involving construction and information technology for the manufacturing industry. She runs a website, http://www.xstitchandbeyond.com providing her original designs in blackwork, cross-stitch and other counted thread techniques.

Hardanger Embroidery

My home growing up was with filled with Hardanger embroidery. When I was older I realized what a treasure these linens were and I now keep them carefully stored and display them for special occasions only. My grandmother was from Norway and despite emigrating to a new country and helping run a fishing camp, she still found time to carry on this lovely tradition. You can see some examples of the linens by clicking the link at the bottom of this article.

Hardangers?m (or Hardangersaum), is Norwegian for 'embroidery from Hardanger', and refers to the style of needlework that many of us know as Hardanger embroidery It takes its current name from a town on the southwestern coast of Norway, in a mountainous area at the head of the Hardanger fjord.

Hardanger is a form of cutwork embroidery which is believed to have originated in Asia and Persia. Hardanger has also been referred to as Norwegian lacemaking because of the way it looks. Portions of the background fabric are cut away and discarded, with the edges worked over in buttonhole stitches. It is worked on white even weave fabric, usually linen or cotton, using linen or pearl cotton threads.

The patterns were used as a favourite decoration worked in bands of embroidery across tablecloths, napkins, towels, bedspreads, pillows and curtains and clothing items such as aprons, shirts, and Norwegian folk costumes.

In simpler forms of hardanger, the holes themselves decorate the fabric but in more advanced techniques, the holes can be filled in with threads in various patterns to create a more elaborate design. You can see both examples in the pictures.

The traditional designs are geometric and based on several shapes: square, rectangle, triangle, diamond, diagonal, zig-zag and cross. These shapes are put together to form many different designs but never created pictures. Patterns varied greatly from one family to another and from village to village. Eventually specific designs came to be associated with specific places.

Hardanger uses many easy-to-learn stitches of two basic types. The first is counted thread embroidery with simple stitches which can be altered slightly or combined in many interesting ways to create limitless designs. Together with drawn-thread or cut-work embroidery, this leads to a stunning effect!

It often featured:

• diamond, triangular or square motifs of cutwork
• satin stitching in rectangular blocks (kloster blocks) and other shapes
• pulled thread work in the form of four-sided stitch
• cable stitch
• eyelets

  Karens Variety is a craft patterns retail site, http://www.karensvariety.com with a large selection of new and used crochet, knitting, needlework, cross stitch, plastic canvas, tatting, embroidery, macrame, dolls and sewing patterns, craft books and PDF reproductions of vintage patterns and pattern books. Learn more by visiting the site Newsletter. Enter the monthly Contest

PE-Design Embroidery Digitizing Software: Getting Started

What is PE-Design?

PE-Design is an embroidery digitizing software system available from Brother dealers and though the 'PE' stands for Personal Embroidery, don't let that fool you. It's a robust system that allows for some pretty advanced digitizing and embroidery and is an excellent program to begin learning the art of embroidery digitizing. The Graphical User Interface (GUI) or What-You-See/Interact-With-On-The-Screen is colorful with large, intuitive buttons and fly-outs. It's also organized very well with no clutter for a large workspace.

PE-Design allows the digitizer to convert a digital picture to stitches and save it in a format that can be read by the computer in your embroidery machine. The image can be one you've hand drawn and scanned, one created in another imaging program such as Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, or JASC Paint Shop Pro, one you've captured (legally, of course) from the Internet, a CD or floppy, or a digital snapshot from your digital camera. Whatever the case, the original image must be in .jpg, .gif or .bmp format.

The PE-Design full product package includes a card reader/writer. It must be plugged into a USB port in order for the program to run. Though you can install the program on any machine, it can only function on the machine where the reader/writer is installed.

Once you've created your design, you can save it in Brother (*.PES), Husqvarna/Viking (*.HUS), Melo (*.EXP), Tajima (*.DST) and Pfaff (*.PCS) formats. It is a Brother product, so its native format is PES.

What Does It Cost?

The program will probably run you somewhere between $1,000.00 and $1,200.00, but if you are purchasing an embroidery machine or are a good customer of the shop and don't mind a little dickering, you might be able to negotiate a substantial savings. It never hurts to try. Here's a tip: Before you buy ask your dealer if any major upgrades to the software have been announced. If a major upgrade is forthcoming and you are in no hurry, you may want to postpone your purchase. Major upgrades come with a price, usually in the range of $250.00 to $300.00, and must be purchased from a Brother dealer. Though a major upgrade is usually worth the investment, you don't want to purchase the software one month just to have to shell out more money a few months later. Minor upgrades, from the current version 6.0 to version 6.07 for instance, are free, and are downloaded from the Brother web site.

Commercial or Home-based?

PE-Design is designed with the home-based digitizer and personal embroiderer in mind. That means that many functions or settings are automatic with limited manual control available to the digitizer. Commercial digitizing software is just the opposite: Functions and settings are in the hands of the digitizer and automatic settings can be adjusted and saved. Of course, commercial digitizing software will cost five to twenty times more than PE-Design. Still, in the hands of a skilled and creative digitizer, PE-Design produces excellent embroidery designs.

Beginning to Digitize

As with any sophisticated software be prepared to practice, practice, practice and use your creativity to explore and push the program to its limits. Learn the fundamentals of what makes a design sew out perfectly, then look at the designs you like with an analytical eye. Ask, "How did they do that?" and try to recreate the technique. With time you'll develop your own style and find your digitizing niche.

Many shops offer digitizing classes. Ask to sit in for free on a few before making a time or financial commitment. If all the instructor does is follow the booklet that came with the software, save your money. You'll probably teach yourself quicker.

Speaking of the manual: It is 262 pages and was obviously written by a team very familiar with PE-Design and the English language. It is well organized with plenty of images and screenshots, is very easy to read and covers the basic use of every tool in depth. It is not a digitizing teacher. Use it to learn the tools, it won't take long, then practice, practice, practice.

The Bottom Line

If you are interested and excited about learning to digitize your own embroidery designs, whether for personal use or to sell, PE-Design is a wonderful way to get started. Its reasonable entry fee and easy to use and learn interface, will allow you to reach new creative heights in all your embroideries.

Deb Schneider is an embroidery design digitizer and PE-Design instructor offering her machine embroidery designs, Redwork designs and appliques on her website: WindstarEmbroidery.com