The charm of red

Date Added: 08/03/2012
RedworkFor us Italians, you all know that, red is the colour: from the one you see in our flag, to the colour of our favourite veggie (tomatoes!), perfect for pasta sauce and pizzas.. everyone from all over the world knows about our soft spot for "pomodoro"
Red reigns also in the fashion business, with the "Valentino Red" and in the top class car industry, with the "Ferrari Red"
This warm colour is a must for us, but not only us! At first only in Europe, under the reign of Queen Victoria, and then in the States, this colour gave the name to a famous kind of embroidery, "Redwork", easy and quite fast to stitch, for it can be reproduced on all sorts of white linen or cotton fabric (with good eyesight they can be even not counted thread fabrics! ) usually representing easy motives and borders.
Redwork is a technique that needs just a ply of red thread to stitch beautiful but simple pieces.
This kind of embroidery, called at first "Turkey Work" (for that's where the red pigment for the cotton fibers came from, one of the few permanent pigmentations available at that time - late 18th century), is stitched with a simple backstitch and still nowadays depicts most likely easy motives, just like in these kits.
Today, though, these lovely and essential pieces are getting more and more often under the spotlight, for they're terribly fun to stitch and go perfectly with quilted fabrics, in order to create true patchwork masterpieces.

You can get many ideas from these books and charts, dedicated especially to the American kind of redwork:
- Redwork Winter Twitterings
- Tea Time Teddies
- Redwork Santa January
- Redwork Pine
- Mind your mama Redwork
- The Fledglings
- Work play Redwork through the day
- Broderie rouge ourson
- Simple pleasures in Redwork

All easy projects that go so well with plain fabrics in red nuances and in white and ivory tones, such as these:
- Bliss Blenders White
- Wildflower Rhapsody C7249 Cream

All meant to create breathtaking pieces, such as these irresistible Crabapple Tree projects:
- Winter Wonderland
- Snowman a to zzzz
- Calendula Patternip's cottage

In case you want to start already ahead of the game, take a look at this cotton, preprinted with redwork designs you can choose to leave like this, or use as guidelines while you stitch with red floss on top of them, for a unique looking quilt.
And mind that if red is not on top of your colour list, redwork can easily be changed into blackwork, or "greenwork", or "bluework".. just by using threads and fabrics in the shades of black, brown, green, blue, ..

Until next time.. happy redwork to everyone!
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