Estense Embroidery in Inspirations Magazine

The latest issue of the Australian embroidery magazine Inspirations is out and it is a really, REALLY nice one. Among the other beautiful projects in this issue are two little Estense Embroidery items from Elisabetta Holzer of Ferrara, Italy.

Elisabetta Holzer's Estense Embroidery projects from the latest Inspirations.

A thimble holder and a small bell-shaped ornament done in the characteristic colours of Estense Embroidery. I translated the instructions and did some stitch diagrams and I have to say it looks wonderful and I am so proud to have been a part of this! Inspirations really is the world's most beautiful embroidery magazine.

As you already know, I absolutely love Estense Embroidery so I jumped at the chance to help make this happen. I had such a good time stitching the projects (I always test out my translations if I can by making the project I'm translating or at least trying out the stitches to ensure that what I've written in English makes sense). I had never assembled something like this before but always admired those little thimble holders.

My own attempt at the thimble holder project.

There was something very enjoyable about putting these together that made me notice and miss that I haven't had much stitching time lately.

I really only needed to check the assembly instructions for the bell so mine is not as ornately embroidered as the one in Inspirations, but I like it all the same.

There is even a little book review of Elisabetta's latest manual:

If you haven't take a look at Inspirations for awhile this is definitely an issue to treasure, it is packed with so many interesting historical articles and the projects are outstanding. You can get a digital subscription or just buy one digital issue from Zinio instead of waiting for the mail.