Sentiments In Stitches

This episode is all about stitching messages into one’s embroidery work. The episode begins with Erica showing several antique samplers, then moving on to showing some of her own work containing lettering, such as pictorial embroideries that she did of the illustrations and verses of Beatrix Potter’s, The Story of Johnny Townmouse. Erica also tells an anecdote of her girlhood in this episode. She states that she has always loved wildflowers and supposes that it dates from when she was seven years old and she and her school classmates were sent out into a field to pick wildflowers to bring back to the classroom for a flower-naming contest. This memory inspired Erica to stitch a wildflower embroidery. Around the central medallion containing the flowers, Erica stitches the poem about flowers and springtime from Shakespeare’s Love’s Labours Lost. Stitches demonstrated in this episode are the backstitch, which Erica says is the best for doing lettering, and the split stitch, which is good for doing cursive writing and signatures in stitches. Erica also provides instruction on how to transfer lettering on paper into embroidery. The first step, she tells the viewer, is to write out the letting on graph paper. Next, the lettering is transferred to trace paper, which is pinned directly onto the fabric. One stitches directly through the paper, and in the end, the paper is torn away, leaving only the embroidered lettering. This episode concludes with Erica showing two different designs for heart-shaped pillows incorporating the word ‘Love,’ a Victorian-inspired design created by her daughter and a very geometric piece designed by her husband. She demonstrates how to make her daughter’s version, and concludes the episode by noting that while such a pillow would make a wonderful Valentine’s Day present, “Love is acceptable at any time of the year.” Summary and select metadata for this record was submitted by Amanda Sikarskie.