London Embroidery School

Central London Embroidery School

hand embroidery

Adding to our Embroidered Lace Online Classes- Broiderie Anglaise

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Adding to the lace embroidery online classes, today we have the Broiderie Anglaise series to bring you. This distinctive technique focuses on creating a lace effect onto woven fabric with lots of different textures offset against one another. Bridging the gap between embroidery and lace, this whitework technique has been harnessed for fashion, lingerie, home ware and childrens’ wear to name a few. 

During this two part series we will walk you through a classic Broiderie Anglaise design where we will try out six different stitch finishes and learn to safely remove the necessary parts of the design. We will also get to know our star tool for this technique, the stiletto. 

Regulars to the London Embroidery School will already know that this series can be bought as your choice of single products or as a bundle; getting the classes and either the deluxe or mini kit with a discount. The second class will be released next Friday so you haven’t long to wait and there is plenty of stitching to be done in the meantime. 

Pop over to the Online Classes section for all the details and to make your selection, or find our other online class options if this one doesn’t quite tickle your fancy as there are lots of techniques to master with the London Embroidery School.

July’s Student of the Month

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Happy August everyone! A month coming to an end means it is time to announce that July’s Student of the Month is….. @ceinwenrees !

Introduction to Goldwork Cherry Design by @ceinwenrees

Having completed the Introduction to Goldwork Cherry Design as seen here, she now has plans to level up to the goldwork online class pear design with her Mum. Such a nice though to spend some time with others occupied by shared interests!

Homemade cakes by @ceinwenrees

This talented ladies skills seem to have no bounds as she turns her hand to other crafts as well as sewing and embroidery.

Homemade dress by @ceinwenrees (made in 2 hours!)

We are sure their pears will be just as lovely as Ceinwen’s Cherries, looking forward to it already.

 

If you would like to be the August’s #studentofthemonth, use the hashtag #londonembroideryschool or tag us when sharing your photos from your London Embroidery School class or the things you have gone onto make following one of our class.

All Images courtesy of @ceinwenrees

 

All Good Things Must Come to an End

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Our current online class series is coming to an end with this final part of the goldwork pear design. The class will focus on cutwork, developing and expanding on the skills we touched on in part 3 to create patterns and elegant tapering sweeps to the shape.

After that all that will be left to do, will be to decide how to display your pear as it deserves pride of place!

Get your copy of this class on our website or if you purchased the set, it will be waiting for you in your inbox. If you are new to the goldwork pear design, get started by choosing one of our bundle options to grab yourself a discount on this design. As all the parts are out now you view them all at your own speed, binge them all over a couple of days or savour the stitching, the choice is yours!

Don’t be shy and share your pears with us when you are done @londonembschool on Instagram and London Embroidery School on Facebook

Plunging, Pearle Purl and (string) Pad additions to the Pear

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We are getting into the more tricky techniques of the goldwork pear design now, starting off this class with plunging, the rather dramatic sounding way to finish off our couching from the last class.

Furthering our finishing touches, we then will be adding the very pleasing looking pearle purl edging before we explore a new padding method with string. This will bring us to step up the difficulty towards the end of the class as we take our first foray into the challenging technique of cutwork. 

 

Get your copy of this next class on our website or if you are new to the goldwork pear design, get started by choosing one of our bundle options to grab yourself a discount on this design. There are now three of the four class parts available with the final one coming next Friday, so plenty of stitching to keep you busy till then! Check back on the 31st July for the final instalment, or have it sent direct to you on it’s release when you buy a bundle option.

LES in FT:How To Spend It Magazine

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In such unusual times and amongst all the difficulties so many have been facing in the past few months, it can feel a bit tasteless to be celebrating almost anything. However looking for the bright side in tough situations is a comfort to most and some  might argue, just human nature. During this period you will probably have noticed that we made quite a big change to our teaching approach and introduced Online classes and kits to our website to adapt to how we could still reach our community. And reach back to us, you have in the masses!

Spurred on by your enthusiasm we now have 10 online classes/ class series with more in the pipeline to come. We are delighted at how much you all seem to be enjoying this new way of interacting with us whether it has provided you with a way to learn you find easier, as a comfort distraction or rekindling an old passion. So to anyone who is new to the London Embroidery School, welcome, it’s a pleasure to have you join us.

This change is working on a bigger scale as it has also been picked up by the Financial Times who recently published an article in their ‘How to Spend it’ magazine entitled ‘How Embroidery Became a Political Power Player‘ where writer Marianna Giusti explores this new trend ”Whether stitching slogans or calming anxious hands, needlework is gaining many new fans.”

Embroidery has a long history of being harnessed as a tool for political change, often understated because of it’s view as a ”women’s craft” and therefore nothing for the powers that be to worry about. From being one of the few methods of documentation that survived of people from minorities, to the suffragettes to hash tagged t-shirts; the examples are many but the motivation behind it remains the same. We are very pleased that one of our tutor’s Auburn Lucas was quoted in the article and that embroidery gets the coverage it deserves in journalism.

So amongst the bad, we hope that if you have found joy in embroidery, long may it continue. People tend to care about things they understand so with more people experiencing hand crafts, perhaps we can all be a part of influencing a more patient, considerate culture as we return to the gentler place that handmade arts has to offer.

Couching into the Goldwork Pear Design

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Moving on from the warm up skills we worked on in part 1, part 2 of the goldwork pear class series is all about couching. Couching is a very well used technique in goldwork pieces you may have seen which involves applying the gold thread to the surface of the fabric with discrete holding stitches. We will be introducing you to 3 types of gold thread to do this with for a variety of effects. The possibilities of couching are pretty endless as the materials are often used in combinations with each other to accentuate how they play with the light and colour. 

So if you are ready to up the challenge, get your copy of this next class on our website or if you are new to the goldwork pear design, get started with your kit and class 1 or choose one of our bundle options to grab yourself a discount on this design.

I’m sure I’ll see you next week for part 3