Embroidery is a kind of handicraft, with the help of which stitches of various types, with the help of a needle, a pattern is applied to the base material. The basis can be different in texture, raw material, purpose. Embroidery decorates both coarse materials: felt, leather, furs, canvas and cloth, and the finest: batiste, veil, tulle, organza, muslin. The threads that produce stitches and form a pattern can be woolen, silk, cotton, linen. Usually the threads have a different color. You can embroider not only with threads, but also with beads, pearls, gold, silver, coins, precious stones, sparkles. A variety of embroidery is a sewn applique, which uses fur, leather, felt for drawings. When drawing a pattern on the base, various seams are used. Embroidery is infinitely diverse in terms of the means of transferring form and color, even the volume of the image. She can apply a contour drawing on tulle, decorate with a veil image, or you can embroider a carpet with a dense embossed pattern.

Embroidery is a delicate craft

Embroidery has been known since antiquity. In the beginning, it was utilitarian in nature. According to the ornament on the clothes of people, the decoration of the harness of animals, it was possible to determine the genus and its history. Often, applied to various household items, it was a talisman, a keeper of the house, livestock and people, in different life situations. Gold and silver embroidery, jewelry with precious stones and pearls were used in the production of clothes of the nobility. Salaries of icons, carpets in the palaces of monarchs, their ceremonial vestments, are embroidered in these techniques.

There are workshops at monasteries where they teach to embroider and sew icons and canvases on theological themes. Gold embroidery art requires extraordinary perseverance, good eyesight and painstaking work. The thinnest threads, stitch by stitch, fit into an ornament or cover entire canvases of enormous size. Usually, more than one craftswoman works on them.

Currently, the work of embroiderers is facilitated by smart devices: magnifiers that are attached to tables, illuminated magnifiers that are attached to the head, frames for attaching the fabric, machines, needles and needle threaders, etc. The most perfect device was the embroidery machine. The first typewriter was invented in 1821, but the mass production of machines began later. Now cars have become available even to ordinary family. The programs of the machines are different, they allow you to decorate the fabric with one flower and a whole range of ornaments replacing each other. The production of machine embroidery does not require a lot of time, unique skills, good eyesight and long training.

Embroidery becomes both a popular needlework and remains an art.
Embroidery has its own expressive means:

reveals the expressive means of the material from which they are made,

the use of a combination of lines and color spots of an embroidered pattern, the impact of the game of free seams or a clear rhythm of counted seams,

increased impact from a combination of an embroidered pattern and its base.

Embroidered paintings, icons, have all the features of an artistic canvas. The aesthetic pleasure from contemplating embroidered paintings is not inferior to positive emotions from the paintings of the great masters of different art schools. Many consider embroidery as an arts and crafts. In everyday life, embroidered decorations are most widely used on table linen – napkins, tablecloths, towels, handkerchiefs, pillow covers, bedspreads, women’s blouses, shawls, scarves and stoles, etc. Creating beautiful and unique things is a reward for people who have mastered at least one embroidery technique. The time spent on work will more than pay off with a new original new thing in the interior or clothes.

If you want to present a small gift to a colleague, embroider a monogram on the corners of a set of scarves, sew machine embroidery on thick fabric, process the edge and get a set of bookmarks, embroider a geometric ornament or flower on a leather key holder with threads or beads, you can create a rune embroidery and give a charm. You can be sure of one thing – no one will present a similar gift.

If you have the time and desire to decorate your home, then a tablecloth with napkins painted with threads in the same style and technique will be indispensable at any celebration. Bead embroidery of paintings, landscapes, reproductions of paintings by famous masters, bead painting on knitwear, clutches, bags, pillows and even watches look most advantageous in good lighting and play of light. Beads can be produced in different countries, in various shapes and colors, ordinary and jewelry. It is fastened at the base with floss threads, ordinary sewing threads or monofilament half-cross stitch. Embroidery schemes can be found in magazines, libraries, on the Internet and ordered. Any picture can be decomposed into colors and create an embroidery scheme for it. Which direction of embroidery you like best is up to you.