How about playing needle and thread???

Welcome to my “Activity Post”!!!

Moving from writing short stories to events about my life and from entries for contests to social stuff, I decided to try a different genre this time. Here, I present you my very first “Activity Post”.

 I am going to blog about the things I do in my leisure time. When I was in the 4^th std, I remember we had “Needle work” classes every Tuesday in the last 3 hours. I can reminisce that I would look forward to these classes and would enjoy it. Learning the basics in school I would try them out during summer vacations and slowly I started learning embroidery too from my mother ( My teacher in every aspect of life! Love you MOM). She taught me the basic stitches and taught me how to learn discover new ways to use those stitches.

Embroidery and designing my clothes with beads and sequences comes naturally to me. You can call it my hobby or my leisure time activity. Although I am not trained in it, I work on small designs in my salwars just to add to the beauty.

Have you thought while buying a dress that you could actually spend some time in designing and making it look elegant? How about making your clothes into something that could define you?

 So here are a few samples of the same and a few tips to make your clothes look even more beautiful.

 Not to forget, it is always advisable to use “ANCHOR” embroidery threads. They give you a specific shine to your stitches and they don’t leave color stains on your clothes when you wash them.

In a recent salwar that I had stitched I found that the sleeve of the salwar could be designed. So I took golden colored thread and used the chain stitch to make small flowers. To add to the beauty I used beads and sequences too.

Back stitch and outline stitch works well when you have to give an outline to a design.  In one of my salwars I had a purple border which was quite broad and I wanted to give it some essence. I used the outline stitch to make the following design.\

 

A month back I had to buy a saree for my cousin’s wedding. I went in for a designer saree, cream in colour with light golden polka dots and  patch zardosi work in gold and red. The blouse of the saree seemed to be very simple after I got it stitched. I decided to buy some readymade sequences that I could stitch to the blouse and I must say it turned out to be a great idea!!!

                           

 

I initially found it difficult to buy beads and sequences in Chennai, however I found out two shops which made it very easy for me.

>>ALANKAR in Chintamani, Anna Nagar is a great store where you can get all the materials related to designing your clothes the way you want.

>>Pondy Bazzaar is another stop for such articles.

>>For my Pune friends the best place you can find this is either in Laxmi road or in “YaKub and Co” in M.G Road, Camp.

For information on the various embroidery stitches you can visit www.needlework.com. They provide videos and you can learn to stitch online.

Hope you found this post informative. This is just an insight for beginners because I am a beginner too. Why not try a few stitches on your own?  Well this is the time pick a needle, make the right choice of colors and beads and play with your creativity.