Crisp Leaves, Hot Coffee and Embroidery

Winter approaching is always a beautiful time of year. As the crisp cool air swirls around us, warm scarves and mittens find their way out of the seasonal cupboards and forgotten closet corner. Suddenly, we need to bundle up with something warm and cozy. There are many great fabric fibers that provide warmth, especially wool. Sweaters and cardigans, mufflers and mittens, socks and caps are all so colorful, stylish and beautiful. As the frost, fog and snow take hold outside, we find comfort and enjoyment in activities at home. It’s the best time of year to sew and embroider. The holidays are quickly approaching and it’s a great time to start on our gift list. We can put the time to best use by taking to embroidery and creating something new and wonderful this season.

Embroidery can improve any winter garment. A muffler for example can be made extremely beautiful and stylish by adding a few leaves, snowflakes or flowers to it. Or you can sew a pocket on the muffler near the end and use an embroidered patch on the pocket. You can choose bright colors to compliment more neutral colors or vice versa, both are equally beautiful. It is great fun to decorate socks with embroidery. You can use small embroidery designs on the ankles. Create your own unique style by personalizing your socks, scarves, mittens, mufflers and hats with machine embroidery designs.

Your sweaters can be made much more colorful and lively with just a little bit of embroidery. Embroidery designs of various sizes and colors can be used to make a boring knitted sweater fun and stylish. If it is not possible to do the embroidery directly on the garment, you can use machine embroidery design as patches.

There are many embroidery designs that are perfect for Fall and Winter home décor. A table runner or table cloth can dress up a holiday table, creating a festive mood. Holiday towels decorated with embroidery give your kitchen and bathroom a fun, holiday feel. Christmas tree skirts, warm lap quilts, “welcome” door decorations and wall mini-quilts give your home a cozy, old-fashioned atmosphere. And embroidery gives all of these things that special touch that turns ordinary items into heirlooms you can pass on through generations to come. With a little extra work (that is more fun than work) all of your clothing, accessories and decor will become much more attractive. Embroidery gives all our garments and home decorations that extra sparkle which creates one of a kind inspiring beauty, for this Winter season and beyond.

Embroidery- A Gift from Grandmother

Sweet reminisces of childhood brings the memories of home baked cookies, of puppies playing in the backyard, of frilly frocks and long walks. Childhood is beyond doubt the most innocent time of our life. And blessed are those who have had the lucky chance to share this beautiful bit of their life with their grandparents. Through our Grannies and Grampas we get a glimpse of that bygone innocent era that held everything that was pure and beautiful.

The most cherished memories of childhood are comprised of little, minute details that so often get lost in the maze of the complicated life we create for ourselves. My most treasured memories of childhood are of me sitting beside my Grandma and watch her do her embroidery . In the dusk of her life her embroidery was her refuge and her embroidery designs were her cohort. It was a sort of tradition that twice a year she used to embroider beautiful articles exclusively for grandfather. In honor of him, this tradition continued and he kept living on in her designs and colors.

With decades of experience and hoards of passion she fervently took to embroidery and started creating small miracles with needle and threads. Hand embroidery had always been pleasurable, but at the advent of machine embroidery, a whole new world was opened for her. Machine embroidery offered much more variety and ease. There was now a scope for ample experimentation. Machine embroidery designs were more vibrant and quick and were much more fun to work with. This passion passed on from my dear Grandma was inherited by my Mother and now by me.

My most prized possessions include hand embroidered artifacts from my Grandmother and Mother. And now that this hobby that has been imbibed in me, I make the most out of it. I play around with colors, fabrics and designs and availability of designs online make it all the more pleasurable. There are a number of sites and online clubs that bring you a good variety of designs and ideas for embroidery. You can log in at anytime and browse through all the wonderful designs they offer. What’s more, you can even upload your own designs and share with other embroidery lovers.