General information

A brief history of St Valentine’s Day

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Have you ever wondered why we celebrate St Valentine’s Day on February 14 and why it is associated with lovers?

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A brief history of the Christmas card

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Handmade Christmas cards can be traced back to fifteenth century Germany where cards with religious pictures were exchanged as seasonal gifts. The custom of sending Christmas cards by post started in Victorian England with the advent of the penny post.

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What type of card do you stitch on?

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I design my stitching patterns to fit on a standard size double-fold card. These types of cards may not be available locally to you, particularly if you live outside of the UK. There are other options and the results can enhance the design in a creative way.

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The Dutch influence on embroidery on paper

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I have been designing stitching cards for over ten years but the origins of the craft go back a long way in history. Card has probably been used as a base material for embroidery since card itself was first produced. In the 1800s sheets of perforated paper became available to needle crafters. This started the Victorian craze for stitching mottoes and sayings on card. Designs were usually worked in long parallel stitches to form areas of colour.

Today’s card embroidery designs are typically worked in long crossing stitches that form geometric shapes. In the early 1990s Dutch designer Erica Fortgens started writing books with instructions and patterns for making stitching cards using geometric shapes.

In the forward to her book “Embroidery on Paper” Erica Fortgens tells how she got started.

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