June 19,2009

Last year I went into my LYS and found on display a craft I'd only heard about but never had the opportunity to see up close, Punch Needle Embroidery. This is very easy to do and works up quickly. Above is a close up of my first project and below is my first project agian but with the needle used to create this included. The was what I did for practice before I started the project I purchased.

All I did was find a picture I liked and traced the pattern onto a scrap piece of muslin by taping it all to my sliding glass door and using a quilting marker to trace with. For the center, leaf, I used a variegated DMC floss that I had left over from a cross stitch project and I am very happy with the result. The deep red inside border and black outer border are also DMC leftovers.

The needle is hollow and threaded from the bottom of the handle up through the top, there is an eye at the top of the needle you pull the thread through. After that all you do is punch down through the fabric and up again until the whole picture is filled in. The project is worked from the back, this leaves loops on the front, (right side). I know these aren't the best pictures but you may be able to see the loops in the top photo. These pictures were taken last year before I got my new camera. This whole project took me only an hour from start to finish and is a lot of fun!

I liked it so much in fact, that I skipped doing the project I first purchased and jumped into something a little more challenging. But I will save this for the next post so I can get some better pictures. Sorry for the suspence ;)