Slow Stitch Embroidery | Crafty relaxing session to join in with

This is a stitch along, which I'm calling Slow Stitch. Here I take time out of the busy day to work on the piece that I am currently embroidering. Why don't you join me with one your projects?
This project is a sample for a pattern that I've created which will appear in the practical embroidery book that I'm in the middle of writing. It's based on motifs from the Bayeux Tapestry. Keep watching this channel for more updates on the book and the projects it will contain.
Dr Alexandra Makin
Early Medieval Embroidery
#embroidery #embroider #Bayeux #textiles #alexandramakin #stitch

[@poodledoodlequilter6479]

I realize I'm very later but I sew all my quilts by hand and quilt by hand. Take care! By the way I love your videos!😊

[@EarlyMedievalEmbroidery]

Thank you! You’re not late at all. Everyone’s welcome whenever they find the videos. Enjoy your quilting!😊

[@Grannievore]

The ONLY time I’ve liked this type of content.

[@EarlyMedievalEmbroidery]

Ooh, that's fab! Thank you so much.

[@TheKeenanno1]

Thanks! I got a lot out of watching this video.

[@EarlyMedievalEmbroidery]

Glad it helped!

[@Acquamarina1010]

Tu video me parece hipnotico, relajante, superdidactico con la ampliacion de la imagen, el canto de los pajaritos y el sonido del agua corriendo, todo perfectamente pensado .Gracias !!!

[@EarlyMedievalEmbroidery]

Tu video me parece hipnotico, relajante, superdidactico con la ampliacion de la imagen, el canto de los pajaritos y el sonido del agua corriendo, todo perfectamente pensado .Gracias !!!☺

[@mountainsno]

For me this was relaxing but also such a great tutorial. Thank you ❤️

[@EarlyMedievalEmbroidery]

I'm so pleased you found it relaxing. The fact that it was a great tutorial is something I hadn't considered. That's great!

[@allisonchouinard6870]

I am OBSESSED with your videos!!!Could you elaborate on the plastic I see on the outer portion of your hoop?

[@EarlyMedievalEmbroidery]

I'm so pleased you like my videos! That's so great to hear 😄. The plastic was an experiment. Its clingfilm that I inserted between the fabric and the hoop. I'd heard that it helps stop the fabric marking / taking on the shape of the hoop and I thought I'd give it a try. It did help a bit but there was still a slight mark there. Mind you, because of my working pattern, this piece was in the hoop for a very long time, which probably didn't help.

[@allisonchouinard6870]

@@EarlyMedievalEmbroidery thank you!

[@nancymorgen1640]

I love watching stitching best with some kind of comments, chit-chat, or other human voice presence. You do beautiful work, but it's far too easy to drift away and miss what you're doing without that. Just my opinion.

[@EarlyMedievalEmbroidery]

Not a problem. Sorry it’s taken me this long to reply. I’ve only just discovered that KZbin doesn’t show replies to replies unless you click a certain button.

[@EarlyMedievalEmbroidery]

Thank you for this. It’s really helpful! And for your lovely remarks about my work too. Also, sorry, I’ve only just replied. I’ve literally just found out that I haven’t been seeing replies to replies and I seem to have missed a lot. I’m trying to catch up now

[@indreja]

Super nice channel am glad I have found you💚

[@EarlyMedievalEmbroidery]

Thank you so much! I’m working on a couple of new videos at the moment so watch this space…

[@indigohalf]

What a cool design! What kind of creature is it? Is it a reproduction of a historical piece/motif? I love the contrasting outlines. By the way, I'm attaching trim to a housecoat that I made out of some discarded bedsheets as I watch.

[@EarlyMedievalEmbroidery]

Thank you! Its a griffin from the border of the Bayeux Tapestry. I'm following the colours, and the stitches for the most part but I've changed the overall design, which you can't see in the video, to make a completely different piece. Its a sample for an embroidery project book I'm in the middle of writing. Ah, I'm so glad you crafted as you watched. Your project sounds really interesting.

[@lauravivanco]

I'm new here and not doing recreations of medieval embroidery, so I'm not your target audience, but judging by what I've seen when I've skipped around in the video (I had to sit near my light source, so I couldn't watch and embroider at the same time), it looks as though I might have been doing a similar stitch to you. I'm pretty beginner-ish with embroidery, and I don't know anything about historical embroidery, so maybe I'm wrong, but I'm also working a solid area in stem stitch/outline stitch (I haven't worked out the difference between the two). It was encouraging to me to see that the area you managed to stitch during the video wasn't all that much different from the amount I managed in the same time. It made me feel that probably the speed I'm stitching at must be pretty normal, so that was reassuring. I also liked listening to the birds, as I could still hear them even while I was stitching on the other side of the room. One difference (i.e. apart from skill level) is that I've been trying out embroidering "in hand." I've no idea if that's something people did in the early medieval period, but I've been hoping that it might help me get the tension right so my stitches don't pull at my fabric and wrinkle it. I can never keep the tension on my hoop tight enough! Looking at how you stitch, I think part of the issue is that I'm embroidering with the movement I learned when I was taught to sew (i.e. the needle goes down through the fabric and up again in one go, instead of using two separate movements). Sorry if this is too long a comment, and not very interesting!

[@EarlyMedievalEmbroidery]

Hi Laura, Yes, you are my target audience. My aim is to tell everyone who's interested about early medieval embroidery and how amazing it is. Its great to hear that you were stitching with this on in the background. I was hoping people would do that. I'm using stem stitch as a filling stitch. Honestly, I've not worked out the difference between stem stitch and outline stitch either. I do wonder if its a Victorian thing. During this period people really did like to pigeon hole things and they often gave the same stitch different names if it was worked slightly differently or used for different things. I just call it stem stitch and then say whether its an outline or a filling. I think most people in the past probably did the same. Honestly, don't worry about your speed. If you end up stitching a lot, you'll get faster. When I was on my apprenticeship (many many years ago now) I was really quick but now, not so much. I do lots of different things and I'm a lot older so I've slowed a little. For me, the most important thing is that I enjoy it, although it is cool to see things progress. One of the reasons I love working outside, apart from the light, is the sound of the birds and the breeze, so I'm glad you enjoyed that aspect too. Tension: do you have your hoop tight enough? It may help if you use a small screw driver to tighten the bolt on the hoop. Also, have you pulled the ground fabric really tight evenly? It should sound like a drum if you tap it. Once up and stitching, keep tightening the hoop and / or pulling the fabric taut, if you think / feel either have slackened off. I also think you could right and if you're embroidering as you would sew, it could cause a problem with the tension. Try stitching as you see me doing in the video to see if that helps. What are you embroidering at the moment? I love to hear and see what people are stitching. And no, your comment isn't too long or boring! We need to discuss these things! Alex

[@lauravivanco]

@@EarlyMedievalEmbroidery What I'm embroidering started off as part of a coat of arms, but then I found out that the person I was making it for hadn't been giving me a subtle hint to make it, so that left me with the lower layers of a castle. I thought I could leave it unfinished as a ruined castle and make it part of a landscape. And then I thought I could add a bit of an underwater scene because what I like embroidering most is animals. So now I'm finishing off the second of two seals and I've got lots and lots of chain stitch water in my future. Oh, and since the first seal puckered the fabric a lot, I decided to stuff it from the back with part of an old sock. I folded the fabric over part-way through too, to give it a backing. And I bought some new needles to try out, as well as changing from hoop to in-hand sewing. So, not exactly a model of how to go about a project! I am learning a lot, though, about what not to do :-)

[@EarlyMedievalEmbroidery]

@@lauravivanco Sorry for the delayed reply. I was having trouble viewing the whole of your message but I've got it figured out now😊. I love that you didn't just give up when the whole thing when you discovered it wasn't a subtle hint. Argh! If it was me, it would have gone on the pile for months, if not years, and then I probably wouldn't have got back to it. I'd have blamed the other person too 😉. I also love the whole problem solving / morphing thing. Surely that's what people have always did before kits and instructions... I remember looking at old pieces and seeing how the outlines or the shapes looked different to what was drawn or should have been there. Well, what 'we' thought should have been there. It makes them so much more human and you can imagine the embroiderer thinking about it and maybe throwing it around when it goes wrong etc. That's one of the things I love about embroidery, you can connect with the maker, even if its years old. What are you going to turn it into once its done? A picture or something completely different?

[@lauravivanco]

@@EarlyMedievalEmbroidery Yes, it's a picture and now I've finished, I've attached some bulldog clips to the top, put a thread through them and it's hanging up in a not-very-prominent place. It must have been a lot more difficult for medieval embroiderers, who didn't have pens with heat erasable ink. Although I suppose those may make life more complicated in a thousand years' time for people studying 21st-century embroideries.

[@EarlyMedievalEmbroidery]

@@lauravivanco Congrats on finishing the embroidery! I did chuckle when I read that its hanging in a not very prominent place. I know that feeling well. You know, I hadn't thought about how erasable ink etc could confuse future analysis. Mind you, the design of the Bayeux Tapestry no longer exists and that causes a lot of discussion - was it drawn on? Wasn't it? If not how did they embroider it? If it was, what pigments were used? The list goes on. So maybe we're there already....