Creating Stitching Adventures
Since 2002!

 Lady’s Worke Box
with
Ellen Chester
of With My Needle

Monday & Tuesday, October 7-8, 2019
at the Publick House in Sturbridge, MA

For this project, you will make two embroidered panels and a silk lining for a 5 1/2 x 9 x 7 inch-high wooden worke box. You will also make a needlebook with a Jacob’s Ladder binding, a pincushion, a three-sided scissors weight, and an embroidered panel for a wooden hornbook threadholder.

In class, we will be working on a small part of the project in order to introduce all of the stitches.  There is a lot of cross stitch on the project, but in addition you will be learning new stitches: alternating double backstitch, backstitch, closed herringbone, cross stitch over one linen thread, cushion (traditional and reverse slant), diamond eyelet, double-sided Italian, four-sided, herringbone, mosaic, plaited cross, Rhodes, Rhodes heart, rice stitch variation, Smyrna cross, tent, tied half Rhodes, and zigzag stitch.  You will get stitch diagrams for all of these stitches and you will have time in class to work on all of them. 

Some people who want to just practice the stitches in class will bring a doodle cloth (a small piece of linen in the thread count they like best) and threads; they will wait and stitch on the project once they get home.  All of the stitch diagrams have the legs of the stitches clearly numbered so it's just a matter of following the numbers.  We've been told by stitchers that our stitch diagrams are among the best out there.  36-count linen is used for this project.

The kit includes the charts and very detailed stitching and assembly directions as well as 36-count linen, silk embroidery threads, DMC threads for the twisted cords and the whitework on the needlebook, hand-dyed silk ribbons, hand-dyed wool for the needlepage, dupioni silk for lining the needlebook and box, a wooden hornbook threadholder, a wooden ruler, a wooden box, two threadwinders, and printed covers for making a small notebook.

An added bonus to the class are more than 120 images of antique worke boxes and their contents that Ellen will be showing.

What to Bring:  You should bring the usual stitching supplies such as embroidery scissors, extra needles, and magnification if needed.  A stitching frame or Q-Snaps that can hold smaller linen pieces are recommended. There is lighting in the classroom, but we recommend that you bring some additional task lighting..