My B.E. Pincushion Factory

These are my Pincushions for Drizzles

Here in my Millefiori Brazilian Embroidery factory, I've been making them for other embroiderers to use while they are stitching - nice firm cushions for holding your needle so the drizzles will have good support. You can purchase them at my Millefiori-BE website or contact me via email.

I ran out of pincushions at our recent BDEIG Seminar and there was enough interest that I could re-open my Pincushion Factory:

The new and improved Pincushions for Drizzles are the same low price, but have been re-styled with cheery colors (read: "bright") and even better cushions for holding your needle.

To thank you for listening to my blatant advertising, I'm sharing one of my little designs here with a stitch you might like to try (I'll even show you how). It's called a "Barbed Bullion".

You'll thread two contrasting colors of floss into your needle, make (approximately) a 1/2" fabric bite and wrap the needle 4 times (bullion...). Then instead of going down and out at the end of the wraps, go down and out about 1/2" farther away. This makes the "barb". You might need to tug one color or the other to even out the floss.

I usually use Iris or Glory, but you can use any floss weight you want. The idea is that you use half as many wraps as usual (e.g., 4 wraps will give you the equivalent of 8 wraps when using two threads).

Now, I have another idea!   Look at that stitch. Think about caterpillars. You can use a heavier weight and a longer floss bite and make a nice striped caterpillar. See?

Of course, that little fuzzy critter would probably require a few more strands or colors of floss. But you get the idea.

That little Barbed Bullion flower is from a book I wrote a while back called "ABCs for Brazilian Dimensional Embroidery."  I collected all of the flowers from the book and a lot of the butterflies and bees and put them into a picture frame design (suitable for an 8"x10" frame). The design is called #904 "Alphabet Flower Sampler" and I also sell the print with all instructions in my Millefiori-BE shop.  Here's a picture:

Most of the flowers on that design are stitched with Iris and Glory.

By the way, if you enjoy using lighter floss weights, my most recent book, #955 "An Artist's Garden" is loaded with tiny traceable designs stitched with lighter-weight floss. Here's one of the designs from the book. Because it's close to 102 degrees here in western Oregon today, I thought you might like some watermelon to cool you down (or stitch...)



Stay cool, everyone!

Rosalie