I’m guessing you aren’t desperate to embroider your tea towels or sew a little motif on the corner of your handkerchief, but if you had lived (as a girl or woman) between 1880 and 1920 you probably would have been doing just that – in Redwork. 
This immensely popular pastime was a very simple technique, sewing an outline motif using a new red-coloured cotton thread from Turkey which was cheap. The only colour-safe threads until then were silks which were too expensive for most people. Redwork was easy to do and little squares could be sewn and put together by anyone, even children as young as five. Later other primary colours became available but red remained a favourite – seems it’s having a bit of a revival at the moment especially amongst quilters.
