Using Digitizing to Recreate Traditional Silk Embroidery

Gear Threads Is The Mr X Stitch Machine Embroidery Column - Presented By Urban Threads!

Digital embroidery is often thought of as losing some of the finer traditions of hand embroidery techniques. Machines stitch in ways people can’t, but they also can’t always replicate the effects a hand-stitcher can create with a needle and long patient hours of work.

However, just like any technology, it can be used in some cases to preserve and showcase a technique of stitching that would otherwise become more and more rare in today’s modern world. The company Art of Silk is doing just that, by using modern digitizing techniques to bring to life traditional delicate silk embroidery.

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The technique used in this case is a little bit different than many digitizing companies employ. Instead of just digitizing regular art, each piece starts as its own hand embroidered masterpiece, done by an artisan as it has been for ages.

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Once that piece is painstakingly embroidered using thousand of tiny silk stitches, the piece is scanned and digitizers spend a month recreating each handmade stitch on the computer.

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What that means is each piece becomes a beautiful recreation of an original embroidered work, so the original art, which is understandably very expensive and unavailable to most regular folk, can be reproduced in a way that keeps this exquisite technique available at a lower cost, but continues to support the original artisans of the embroidery as a key part of the process.

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If you’re more curious about the technique, they have a whole video about how their designs are made, which you can check out here. You have to admit, the results are exquisite!

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Urban Threads - Unique and Awesome Machine Embroidery DesignsGear Threads is brought to you from the offbeat gals at Urban Threads. Created by illustrator Niamh O’Connor, Urban Threads is revolutionizing machine embroidery one edgy, elegant, innovative, and/or offbeat design at a time. Discover the future of digital stitchery at www.urbanthreads.com.

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