On Kimono & Needlepoint

Kimono (it’s both a singular & a plural word) seem to be in the air lately.

Many people are stitching ANG’s Stitch of the Month project from Tony Minieri, which is a kimono mystery project.

Lots of people love Lee Needle Arts kimonos. They come in many sizes, from ornament sized to really large, and dozens of designs. I particularly love the tiny ones and have made many of them. Kreinik has a stitch guide for one of the small ones on their site. Sophia Designs and JP Needlepoint, among others, also have some delightful kimono hand painted canvas needlepoint.

Another superb project is Kimono from Hummingbird House. While I haven’t stitched it, many of my friends have and it is a glorious needlepoint sampler. It is based on a Maggie Lane outline and filled with stitches.

If charted canvas is your preference, check out this design by Lea Peacock, currently on sale at Nordic Needle. You can also find her patterns on eBay. Rising River Silk has lovely kits stitched on silk gauze with silk. There is also another lovely free project by Sharon G, which is part of ANG’s Stitch of the Month series.

Summer Truswell has step-by-step instructions for finishing a kimono on her blog. The kimono pictured (from this post) is displayed in a traditional way for formal kimono. The back of the garment, including the sleeves, is one big canvas for art, generally embroidery, so that showing this off is a common way to display kimono.

You can even buy lacquered display stands to show them off on a table.

If you want to learn more about kimono and the tradition, take a look at Lisa Dalby’s kimono (available on Amazon). An excellent source of pictures and ideas is Kimono Source. And here’s an outstanding list of books on kimono and related textiles. It’s about as complete as I’ve ever seen.

I’m going off to do the next patch in my ANG kimono.