Needleworkers of the Anglican Diocese of Toronto gather on Mondays to work on hand-made embroidery for churches across Canada. I was lucky enough to spend a few Mondays with them and learned a lot about traditional techniques – like how to transfer a pattern without using […]

Vogue Charity Fashion Show 2007
Vogue Charity Fashion Show is an annual fundraiser at Queen’s University which raised $23,000 for Kingston General Hospital in 2007. As a second year student at Queen’s University, I teamed up with a friend to design and construct what turned out to be the winning collection. […]

cross stitch scrabble
Here’s a little card I made for a scrabble lover. It’s worked in cross stitch with one strand of DMC embroidery thread.

‘calm like a bomb’ motto sampler
This is a motto sampler I’m working on for my friend Katherine. She’s a graphic designer so I wanted to have fun with the typography. I stole the lettering from a motivational poster I saw on pinterest. I liked the colours and how they changed when […]

hand stitching with machine embroidery thread
I wanted to embroidery this little octopus as soon as I spotted him on a poster for the ‘Carefully Planned Festival.’ After stitching him, I was delighted to find out that the illustrator – Amy Tidmarsh – studied embroidery at Manchester Metropolitan University! I used machine […]

‘live and let die’ motto sampler
Here’s a (finally finished!) motto sampler I made for my friend Emma. The font is from the original book cover and it’s worked in split stitch with one strand of DMC embroidery thread.

FREE PATTERN: Sampler, 1730, Harris Museum & Art Gallery
Source: Sampler, 1730, Harris Museum & Art Gallery. This lovely font was copied directly from a 1730 sampler at the Harris Museum & Art Gallery. After charting the pattern, I modified some of the letters to square them off. Then I embroidered them onto […]

initials
One of my first attempts at split stitch. It’s normally used to outline shapes – but it makes a good filler stitch too! – Shannon Quigley

‘little and often’ motto sampler
Little and Often. A motto sampler in chain stitch to start us offSaveSave

“an apple pie without cheese is like a hug without a squeeze”
I made this Christmas ornament for my great-aunt. She can remember her great-grandfather (so my great-great-grandfather) saying “An apple pie without cheese is like a hug without a squeeze.” He also used to pat his rather large belly and say “They don’t put bay windows on shacks – […]