Patty LaCroix
Recently, I looked at my grandmother’s hankies that were handed down to me, which were beautifully hand embroidered. I realized that those took hours to complete, with beautiful designs on the edge of a silk or cotton hankie. As a young woman, I adopted the hand embroidery techniques not only from my grandmother but also from my mother. Fast forward over 60 years, and I’m still doing embroidery. I embroider not by hand, however, but by machine. With the invention of the computer and our embroidery machines, our library is endless. I often tell people that my embroidery machine is a computer that sews.
The Embroidery Group here at the Ranch will tell you we all have the same passion: machine embroidery. We have been discovering there are so many techniques, software, designs, threads, needles, and stabilizers that have expanded our results. This past month, we expanded our creativity by stitching an image with only black thread. After completing the design, we colored it with watercolor pencils, fabric markers, and/or alcohol pens. It was sort of like coloring in a coloring book. Most of us remember coloring in our favorite coloring book, right? You can see some of those results from the picture. Beautiful creativeness.
If you have an embroidery machine and would love to expand your creativity, consider joining us on Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Creative Art Center. Bring your lunch or snack. If you have difficulty lifting your machine in or out of your car, there are many of us who will give you a helping hand. Even if you have a machine and have never turned it on because you’re afraid to get started, we can offer you some positive encouragement. Just do it!
If you would like to know more about the Material Girls, along with the Embroidery Group, contact either myself at [email protected], 951-440-5482 or Diane Bohmert at [email protected], 651-434-1902.