- published: 09 Apr 2016
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Embroidery is the art or handicraft of decorating fabric or other materials with needle and thread or yarn. Embroidery may also incorporate other materials such as metal strips, pearls, beads, quills, and sequins. Embroidery is most often recommended for caps, hats, coats, blankets, dress shirts, denim, stockings, and golf shirts. Embroidery is available with a wide variety of thread or yarn color.
A characteristic of embroidery is that the basic techniques or stitches of the earliest work—chain stitch, buttonhole or blanket stitch, running stitch, satin stitch, cross stitch—remain the fundamental techniques of hand embroidery today.
Machine embroidery, arising in the early stages of the Industrial Revolution, mimics hand embroidery, especially in the use of chain stitches, but the "satin stitch" and hemming stitches of machine work rely on the use of multiple threads and resemble hand work in their appearance, not their construction.
The origins of embroidery are unknown, but early examples survive from ancient Egypt, Iron Age Northern Europe and Zhou Dynasty China. Examples of surviving Chinese chain stitch embroidery worked in silk thread have been dated to the Warring States period (5th-3rd century BC).
Since I was a girl, I've been good at embroidery
I finished up my finishing school in Switzerland
Then I escaped to Evian, wound my car down the alps, lived only on apricots
Picked by the side of the road
In vevey I lived with two spinsters who spoke only french
But mostly bickered
They fed me strawberry wine
I sat in my room writing you lines on doilies
They all said the same thing
I wish you were here
The lights on Lake Geneva are a sight for sore eyes
They turn the water into glass
I could step on it and be in Lausanne
Then I'd be just miles from you, maybe I'd see you in line at the shooting booths
Maybe you'd buy me an ice cream cone
But if you look you'll see my initials stitched inside your left breast pocket
The one you keep your handkerchief in
The one closest to you heart
Since I was a girl I've been good at embroidery
Since I was a girl I've been good at embroidery
But no needlepoint will bring you
Across this continental divide