A needle is the main stitching tool that has been used since times immemorial. Needles have a sharp tip at one end which is used to pierce through the fabric. The other end of the needle has a small hole or opening called the ‘eye’. The thread is passed through this eye.

Needles come in various sizes and types. While some needles, especially sharp ones, are used for stitching, there are some other kinds that are used for knitting or crochet work.

This page illustrates some needles. Information on more types of needles will be added.

Sharps: These needles are used for common sewing purpose. It has a sharp point and a round eye. These needles come medium length, one factor with which you can differentiate it from the other types of needles.		Crewel / embroidery needles: These needles are similar to sharps, but has a longer eye to accomodate more number of embroidery floss or threads.
Betweens / quilting needles: These needles are shorter and thinner with a samll round eye. They are used for fine stitches on heavy fabric or layers of fabric.		Tapestry needles and Chenille needles: These needles have long eye to accomodate more number of threads and even ribbons. While the tapestry needle is blunt, chenille needles are sharp.
Milliner’s needles: These needles are longer than sharps. They are good for basting and pleating. Its eye has the same size as that of the needle shaft, and so passing through pleats of fabric is comfortable.		Beading needles: These needles are very thin with really thin eye. This thin nature makes the needle pass through the holes of beads easily.
Crochet needles: These are long needles without an eye. These needles are used for crochet work, which does not involve the need to pierce through fabric, and so, it does not have a sharp end too. Crochet technique uses hooking and pulling out the thread, and so, the head of the crochet needle comes with hooks of various sizes. What size to use depends on the size of the thread that is used.		Knitting needles: These are long needles that come in various sizes and width. Knitting needles does not have an eye, as it is not used to stitch through fabrics, but knit. So, it does not even have a sharp end, but a tapering end.

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Tags: beading, chenille, crewel, crochet, embroidery, hand embroidery, knitting, milliners', needles, quilting, sharps, tapestry

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Redwork also known as  : Turkey red embroidery, Penny squares
Bluework also known as : Blue redwork

embroidery sample: redwork

About redwork
Redwork embroidery, as simple as its name suggests, is embroidery with red cotton thread over white fabric. It took its name from an embroidery thread known as Turkey Red. The manufacturing process for “Turkey Red” was complex and a well-kept secret for decades. The complete “recipe” for the original dye is still a mystery. Redwork was extremely popular among the common people because the cotton thread was not only colorfast, but it was less costly than the silk threads commonly used at the time, and the designs were easy to embroider.

History
Interestingly, red work was not a completely new find in the embroidery world. It used basic stitches like stem stitch, outline stitch and split stitch for outlining patterns. However, the popularity peaked around the turn of the 19th century (somewhere around 1880′s). There is a reason behind this sudden upsurged popularity. Silk was a very expensive material during the time and cotton was cheap as well as available in plentiful. Moreover, there were many people who were not caught up in the fashion of ‘crazy quilting’ of those times. So, the peasants and the middle class household used cotton fabric to make embroidery and decorate their homes. Around this time, a new colorfast thread of red color came to be popular. This thread, being a special manufacture from the country of Turkey, came to be called Turkey red. Ladies were ready to even pay a little extra to buy this thread. They then began to make outlining patterns exclusively with this red thread.

Around 1850′s redwork travelled to America, where it was used more for quilting purpose. From about 1860′s to around 1920′s, school girls were taught this form of embroidery. The dry goods stores in america sold small square pieces of white cotton fabric with a simple design stamped on it along with red thread for a penny. So, these were called ‘penny squares’. These were used to do redwork and were put together to make covers for beds and quilts. School girls and orphans were taught redwork as embroidery was almost an essential part of a woman’s lifestyle in those days. Redwork was refered to as ‘Penny square’ only for a brief period only when quilting was popular using these penny squares.

Embroidery was also taught in the schools of England. One of the schools that helped popularise redwork is the Kensington school of England. The stem stitch, one of the main stitches used- even came to be known as the South Kensington Stitch as a result of it! It is popular that the split stitch is also known as Kensington outline stitch or English Kensington stitch, but I am not so sure of this.

Redwork began to see a decline as more variety of colorfast thread came into avaialbility. Such and access to a variety of better threads in the open market gave rise to the experimenting with different kinds of embroidery and stitches, leaving redwork behind.

Around 1910 and 1930 a new colorfast thread of blue color came into popularity and work with blue thread came to be known as Bluework or Blue redwork.

Redwork today
Redwork saw a revival only since the past few years. We could be thankful to the quilting enthusiasts mainly for its rebirth. Since redwork was majorly associated with quilting using penny squares, modern quilting has tried to revive this art.

Patterns used
Traditionally, the patterns were simple comprising of animals, children, kitchen themes and nature. Since this embroidery work consists of just simple outlining of patterns, a lot of other themes and types of patterns have been experimented with.

Stitches used
1. Running stitch
2. Back stitch
3. Stem stitch
4. Outline stitch
5. Split stitch
6. Lazy daisy
7. French knot

Tracing Designs
1. draw directly over the fabric. Since the patterns are simple, most of them can freely drawn directly over teh fabric with a pencil or removeable ink.
2. trace over the fabric from the source, using a tracing paper.
3. transfer the designs from a traceable source.

Lessons

• Redwork lessons
• Bluework lessons

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Tags: embroidery tutorial, french knot, hand embroidery, Kensington, kensington stitch, lazy daisy, outline stitch, penny square, penny squares, quilting, quilts, red work, running stitch, split stitch, stem stitch, straight stitch, turkey red embroidery, victorian embroidery, victorian era

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