Crewel Embroidery

One of my newer hobbies is Crewel Embroidery. According to our friend Wikipedia:

Crewel Embroidery, or Crewelwork, is a decorative form of surface embroidery using wool and a variety of different embroidery stitches to follow a design outline applied to the fabric. The technique is at least a thousand years old. It was used in the Bayeux Tapestry, in Jacobean embroidery and in the Quaker tapestry. The origin of the word crewel is unknown but is thought to come from an ancient word describing the curl in the staple, the single hair of the wool.

I stumbled upon a lovely lady who recreates historic English designs into kits for purchase. So my beginner kit was an Elizabethan pansy pattern. I think it turned out rather nice.

Here's a more zoomed in photo, you can see the technique called soft shading that gives it a painterly affect.