Traditional Embroidery
Embroidery is the craft of decorating fabric or other materials using a needle to apply thread or yarn. Embroidery may also incorporate other materials such as pearls, beads, quills, and sequins. In modern days, embroidery is usually seen on caps, hats, coats, overlays, blankets, dress shirts, denim, dresses, stockings, scarves, and golf shirts. Embroidery is available in a wide variety of thread or yarn colors. It is often used to personalize gifts or clothing items.
Some of the basic techniques or stitches of the earliest embroidery are chain stitch, buttonhole or blanket stitch, running stitch, satin stitch, and cross stitch. Those stitches remain the fundamental techniques of hand embroidery today.
Cross-Stitch Embroidery
Cross-stitch embroidery is a type of embroidery carried out on canvas or an evenly woven fabric in which the strands of the weave can be counted. Canvas work was executed at least as early as the Middle Ages when it was known as opus pulvinarium, or cushion work. As its name implies, cross-stitch is a double stitch diagonally crossing intersections of the horizontal and vertical threads of the fabric. Since it is based on regular squares, it imposes a certain discipline and squaring-off of forms; flowers and the like are thus schematized rather than naturalistic.
