Home Embroiderer Develops Patented Shadow Work Technique Embroidery Project

Suzanne Hinshaw’s life-long passion for sewing and embroidery began as a little girl when she started sewing under the tutelage of her mother and grandmother. “Back then, everything I did was by hand,” she says. “I learned how to construct garments. My mother finally got a sewing machine and I remember how much fun we had learning to use it together.”

With her mother being an interior decorator and her father an architect and contractor, Hinshaw had designing in her genes. “I would play in my parent’s workshop,” she says. “I was always sitting at a drafting table with fabric swatches and paint samples in my hands.” The embroiderer further developed her natural talents while majoring in design at the University of Florida.

While going to college, Hinshaw worked at Burdines, which owned department stores throughout Florida, in its fashion department. In addition to modeling, she lectured during fashion shows on current trends and styles offered by the company. She also had the opportunity to work with fashion designers and gained an understanding about the construction of garments, fabrics, and stabilizers.

After graduating from college and getting married, Hinshaw found herself led in the direction of using sewing and embroidery for decorative purposes. Because of her husband’s occupation as a real estate developer and broker, it was a natural segue for Hinshaw to work with him decorating some of his homes.

“He developed model homes and investment people would purchase homes and need them decorated,” she says. “So I took over that aspect of the business, which I did for years. We dealt with a lot of major companies.”

In the meantime, Hinshaw also was sewing for herself, her children, and home. She made many decorative items for her home such as drapes, bedspreads, and pillows.

She then learned about a new technique Martha Pullen had developed for heirloom sewing by machine. “The machines were getting better and Martha came up with techniques used on the machines to actually stitch like we used to do by hand, giving the same results. I attended one of Martha’s first classes, and became hooked on these techniques.”

After becoming a regular at Pullen’s classes, eventually Martha asked Suzanne to start teaching classes for her. She started teaching even though she was still busy at home raising her three sons and a daughter and doing interior decorating.

Hinshaw attended and taught classes twice a year for Martha Pullen for nearly 22 years. When Pullen launched her magazine, Sew Beautiful, Hinshaw started writing. “In addition to teaching classes, I also drafted patterns and sewed many dresses and home decor items that were used for cover photos. Many of these patterns were included in the magazine.”

But Hinshaw was never satisfied with the status quo. The fun part about sewing and embroidery for her was the creative aspect of pushing the borders of what could be done and coming up with new techniques and looks. About six years ago, Hinshaw started experimenting with techniques to make machine embroidery look more like it was done by hand. “I kept envisioning that there was a way to do hand-like embroidery on the machine that was finer tuned. When you stitch designs on gorgeous fabrics, you want the designs to look as though they are as delicate as the fabrics themselves.”

	Hinshaw embroidered this pillow based on the hand-sewn designs she studied abroad.

Hinshaw has studied in England, Scotland, and Madeira in hand sewing techniques as well as examining antique garments. In her studies, she was able to examine in great detain (through microscopes) exceptionally detailed embroideries. She learned about their construction, style, and history within each of these countries. Her studies included visiting numerous museums and learning from their respective curators.

Madeira was exceptionally interesting as it is a Portuguese independent island located in the North Atlantic, directly west of Morocco, Africa, and southwest of Lisbon, Portugal. Here, techniques were developed to create beautiful one-of-a-kind designs on cloth and tapestries incorporating lace, embroidery, shadow work, Madeira appliqué, and other handicraft. She examined tablecloths that were stitched for royalty that were more than 30 feet long and took years to complete.

Many of these works were used to decorate bags, chairs, panels, carpets, cushions, and other decorative items. Intricate stitches such as grado and goelin were used to create details and delicate shading. “My favorite techniques, however, were the Madeira appliqué and using the Point de Paris stitch to secure the appliqué as well as the delicate and intricate Shadow Work by hand.”

Hinshaw became “mesmerized with shadow work.” For those who are not familiar, shadow work is a technique originally done primarily on slightly opaque but somewhat sheer fabrics - such as cotton batiste and linens. The technique itself is done with one color of thread per section of the design. While taking a minute straight stitch on the outline of the design, you cross your needle in back of the fabric and come up on the opposite side of the outline of the design, thus having your thread itself lying on the backside of the fabric.

	An example of shadow work from one of Hinshaw's napkin and ring sets she created for her home.

When completed, the design, if viewed from the front of the fabric, has a very fine minute outline of straight stitches while the crossed threads in back of the fabric form the shading that shadows through the fabric, which colors the inside of that design with a softer shade of the color of the outline thread. The result is a very beautiful design that has delicate and subtle shading throughout.

Although the results are well worth the efforts, it was a very time-consuming technique. In an attempt to create a similar effect in less time, shadow appliqué was developed.

This uses the same concept, but instead of threads creating the soft color filtering through the fabric, another piece of colored fabric is attached underneath the fabric. The outline of the design (i.e. – a leaf) is stitched and the green fabric is secured underneath, then the excess green fabric is trimmed away from the outline. From the front of the fabric it creates the shadow work effect using fabric underneath it.

“It was less time consuming, and it would give that shadow work look,” says Hinshaw. “It’s a wonderful technique. I love to use it myself. The only problem with it is that you couldn’t do tiny designs. It would take forever trimming away fabric from behind from teensy tiny leaves. Thus this technique is used more for larger designs.”

“So I could do larger designs with shadow appliqué but not designs for baby clothes such as around the baby’s neck and delicate children’s designs, which still frustrated me,” she continues. “Then one day I was in the shower and I just kept thinking, ‘Why can’t I do this? And I thought of something that might work.”

	A great example of Hinshaw's shadow work is this baby’s baptismal gown with finely detailed flowers and vines around the neck.

“I got out of the shower, and I digitized a quick design and it worked! I was so excited. I took it down to show my husband, and he looked at me and said, ‘That’s really pretty, honey.’ Little did he really know that morning I launched the next era of my sewing business.”

After fine tuning her technique and giving it a trial exhibition while teaching at Martha’s “School of Art Fashion,” Hinshaw got wise advice to immediately apply for a U.S. Patent. After nearly three years, she received it in August of 2000.

	This beautiful white satchel, which Hinshaw sews herself, is designed to hold jewelry.

Since she created her technique, Hinshaw has created a beautiful collection of predigitized shadow work embroidery designs that anyone can use to decorate wearables and home décor items. “It works spectacular on cotton batiste, most all linens, really fine wools, lightweight cotton muslins, voile, organdy, silks, organzas and most any fabric you can see a shadow of your hand through. Quilting with shadow work is unbelievable,” she says. “It almost gives a hand-painted effect of the design, while allowing the design to appear three-dimensional.”

Today, Hinshaw continues to add to her predigitized embroidery design collections, while incorporating added embroidery techniques with the Shadow Work concept. Suzanne’s designs are also available in Australia and New Zealand through Echidna Sewing Distributors. Suzanne stays busy teaching all over the country, in sewing shops, sewing conventions, machine conventions, and can be seen in embroidery seminars as well as giving classes for “The Hands-On Sewing Schools.”

To see Suzanne’s collection of shadow work embroidery designs, go to https://www.allbrands.com/products/abc0833.html.