What is crewel embroidery and how to start

Embroidery, as we have mentioned in other articles, can be a very entertaining and also therapeutic hobby: it serves to focus attention and creativity on a project that, when finished, will fill you with satisfaction. , whether for its beauty or for the pride of having fulfilled this commitment with oneself.

This is what Gloria Farachi and Daniela Yávar, mother and daughter, both founders of Kits & Crafts , a family business that creates and designs crewel type embroidery kits. This modality is a great option for beginners, as these kits have everything you need to complete a specific project, such as a cushion or an embellishment for a garment, to name just a few of the many alternatives and variations. .

“We do everything as a family and by hand,” says Yávar. They have different fabrics to make the cushions, as well as “a hundred different colors of wool, which can also be personalized. There are times when they ask us to change a color and there is no problem”.

It is a style of embroidery that stands out for its striking designs, in addition to the use of wool to do it, instead of thread, as in other techniques. Before, crewel embroidery used to appear on wall hangings, curtains or pillows, but today it can be added to any surface you love the most, from a framed painting to decorate to an embroidery. on a jacket.

If we go back to its origins, crewel is a technique that is at least a thousand years old. Its apogee is associated with Elizabethan England – that of the 17th and 18th centuries -, which would later extend among the colonies of the British Empire. Over the years, designs have been innovated and color palette choices have become bolder. However, what always remains is this wool yarn.

“The crewel is a lot of fun, because you have a lot of points to learn,” says Farachi. She learned it at school, at a time when “we embroidered bus sheets, bibs or aprons for boys and girls. Now it’s very fashionable to do all these things with wool,” he says.

In addition to embroidering with yarn, Farachi adds that with crewel you can change and mix the stitches, which does not happen in techniques such as punch needle or embroidery with plaits, which is the most traditional way.

It’s difficult? Farachi says no. Like any profession, to advance requires will and attention, in order to learn and mix the points. With the Kit & Craft sets it is even easier, since they include, in addition to the materials —such as the fabric, the wool, the needles and the frame—, instructive and didactic videos of the movements that must be carried out with them. the needle to make project designs. Her advice is to start with a cushion, as it is usually the easiest object to embroider.

In terms of materials, to be able to embroider with crewel, you need a good pointed needle, with an eye wide enough to support the wool yarn of your choice. You also need a frame to tighten the surface you are working on and good light. Kit & Craft’s wool has the distinction of being sheep’s wool, natural and hand-dyed, “which makes it easier and faster to advance compared to a yarn”, adds Farachi.

When she went to school, Daniela was not very good at DIY. “The most artistic are my mother and my brothers. For me, almost all my artistic work was done by my mother,” she admits with a laugh. “I think the teachers always knew; even my son draws better than me”. But when they had the idea for the adventure—which coincided with a time when she had a lot of time, since she was accompanying her husband abroad—she very quickly learned how to embroider crewel.

“I started with an easy kit and put it away. It’s really not difficult at all,” he says. In the beginning, I used stuffed stitch and stem stitch a lot. “When you move forward, you have a few more points, but at the same time you have a looser hand. At this stage, I already manage most of the points and I’m not afraid to try new ones,” he says.

As for the type of stitch to start with, the fill stitch is one of the most cited. So much so that you may already know it and know how to do it: it’s as simple as sewing from the outside in. The idea is to complete the determined figure using each stride. In the following video tutorial from Wake up you can see the movement up close.

He stem stitch This is the second point they mention to keep learning. “In this case, we insert the needle, we pull the thread, we take a step forward and we come back to the starting point”, he teaches in the turorial embroidery art by Blanca de la Cruz, which has more than 633,000 subscribers. “The thread should always be held down. Then a stride is advanced and the needle is brought back to where the last stitch ended. This whole little dance of movements should be repeated until you have the desired length. To understand it well, you can review the following video.

“Our kits contain a bit of everything,” says Daniela. By this he means that you can find sets for people who have never taken a needle in their life as well as sets for people who are already experienced and looking for a little more difficulty. “Some are easier, others are intermediate, and we also have the most advanced,” he explains.

“Several psychologist clients strongly recommend that their patients do DIY: it serves as a distraction, improves self-esteem, introduces you to something new and quickly enters into a hobby you don’t want to quit”, Gloria analysis. Both remember a story that took place while they were giving face-to-face lessons. A girl was embroidering and out of nowhere she said, “I solved a lot of problems by embroidering.” “It’s like embroidering, you rest from so many thoughts and your ideas clear up,” they say.

Among the virtues put into practice with embroidery is patience, which translates into the time you devote to your embroidery. Each point requires perseverance and perseverance, because it is entirely up to you that the project, no matter how small, can be completed.