Stitching Love, Mushrooms and Strippers!

I thought I would share my recent-ish embroidery projects with you today. I really love embroidery, I find it the perfect way to relax.  I have taken the true love heart and the fan dancer from Embroidered Effects by Jenn Hart, if you are new to embroidery this book is amazing, not only does it teach you lots of the basic stitches but it also has loads of iron on transfers to play with. The little mushroom is based on a drawing from a graphics book I borrowed from the library. I copied the design onto my fabric using some grease proof paper and my Sulky iron on transfer pen.  

My next embroidery project involves stitching some place mats, I bought 6 for £1 from this little antique shop I stumbled upon the other week. I need to decide on a theme, at the moment I am thinking pin ups and vegetables. Who wouldn't want to eat their dinner off a placemat with those two things on?!

Hope you are having a great week <3

xkx

Sneak a Peek into my Sewing Box?

I thought I would give you a little peek into my sewing box today, this is where I keep all my basic bits and bobs that usually get waylaid and lost down the back of the sofa. Ed bought me this box filled with Lush products for our anniversary and I was so happy to be able to turn it into my sewing box so I could keep all my sewing things along side the happy memories of that day... cheesy huh. 

1. My gorgeous, much loved pin cushion that my mum made me! It is based on one        that I saw in a Cath Kidston shop... but i like mine better. 

2. Just a little embroidered frame I have been working on to maybe put on Etsy.

3. All purpose craft glue, what creative lady can live without it?

4. Cath Kidston measuring tape, Ed bought it me as a treat ages ago.

5. Hello Kitty paper clips, I love these so much they make me happy every time I use them.

6. Candy pink cotton, always useful especially to tease Ed that I will mend his clothes with it.

7. Random coloured embroidery thread, mostly the colours I was using on my small hoop.

8. Small embroidery hoops that I found at the local market for quite a good price.

9. My trusty embroidery scissors. If you are into embroidery or want to start doing some, invest in some good scissors! These cost me about £8, I religiously only snip thread with them, I look after them and they look after me.

10. Easy thread needles seemed a good idea at the time, but they are pretty useless when I am using 6 strand embroidery thread, 2-3 strand works okay though so they are not a total waste.

11. The Sulky Iron-on Transfer Pen is possibly the best £5 I have ever spent! It is amazing because it means you can turn any line drawing into an embroidery transfer, it is awesome! I will do a tutorial on how I use this soon. 

12. Thread Heaven Conditioner and Protectant is a wicked product, just drag your embroidery thread through it and it will make your thread all smooth and conformist. Lovely product. Some people say you need two, one for dark thread and one for light but I haven't had a problem using just one block yet. 

I hope you have enjoyed looking through the treasures in my sewing box. What lovely things do you have in yours?

xkx

Xmas Stitching...

I picked up some Xmas cards today. They are rather lovely but I developed a stitching itch this evening and couldn't resist giving one of the cards a little bit of a festive make over. The  card is pretty good quality (for my standards), it is quite thick and sturdy which made the stitching a bit easier. But when I put my tree on the front it was a tugging match to get the thread through the card and the foil decoration.

It is so easy to yule pimp your cards as long as you keep to one rule, keep it minimal! I am the queen of over complicating designs but I have found that if you try to do too much detail, too close together the card will get those veins from where you have bend the card too much, and you don't want your holes too close together because they are likely to rip in between.

Once you have decided what your embroidered touches are going to be, put your card on a thick cushion and poke your needle through to create your holes. When all your holes are stabbed through start stitching like you normally would using the holes to guide your stitches. It is like a stitchy dot-to-dot. Because this is thick card I found it a bit tough to pull the needle through, but I found if I pulled the needle through nearly all of the way and then turned it like a clock hand would turn, it eased the hole a little bit bigger so I could safely get the thread through. 

I was a total rebel stitching these cards because I knotted the thread AND didn't worry about the backs of the stitches on show!!! I like leaving them peeking around the back of the card, I think it adds a gorgeous homemade touch. I am over the moon with how this card turned out, I think it just adds that personal hint that makes Xmas just that little piece more special. 

Hope you are surviving this festive season without too much stress <3

My Embroidery Bike Ride.

It was Ed's birthday last week and whilst I was tidying up today I found some wrapping paper strewn on the table. I thought this paper was super cute and decided to have a little embroidery bike ride, which is a very good way to spend a rainy evening I think. I stuck the wrapping paper onto some good quality sketch paper, with some thin double sided tape, to give it some more stability and off I went. This was just a few hours stitching, I think next time I might use this technique to make some cards. And I am very pleased that my french knots are finally starting to look decent, it has been a difficult road mastering that stitch!

Getting Ready for Halloween... 7 Weeks to Go!

It is 7 weeks until Halloween! My all time favourite time of year. I have started making my Halloween cards already and this is what I have been playing around with so far. I am addicted to doing embroidery on paper and card, it is just so rewarding. 

This is my practise ghost before I do one with my glow in the dark thread, I can't wait to see how it looks when it is glowing away! 

It is so simple to do embroidery on card and paper, just sketch out your design on some tracing paper. Lay the tracing paper on to the card then punch holes through with a needle leaving smallish gaps so the card doesn't rip (you may need to experiment with how big the gaps need to be for different stitches). I find it useful to put a thick cushion on my lap so when I am making the holes with my needle I know I won't stab myself. Once you have all your holes in the card just stitch away and make something beautiful.

EEeeeekk I just can't wait for Halloween <3 

Machinarium Inspired Stitching.

So here, as promised is my first embroidery on paper project that I did for Ed. I have loosely based it on the robots in the Machinarium game as Ed was totally obsessed with it for ages. I am really glad how it turned out and I learnt so much! Especially not to get the holes too close together or whole chunks of paper will fall out. 

I LOVE embroidering on paper and I am really excited to do more. I bought some black card and some glow in the dark embroidery thread today, so my evening is going to be spent experimenting with that. 

Dipping my toe into the Waters of Embroidery.

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I had bought Embroidered Effects by Jenny Hart after seeing her on a Threadbanger video. I have never tried embroidery in my life and I was a little bit scared of it, but this book makes it so straightforward. The only thing I had to remember was to hold a mirror up to the diagrams because I am left handed.  

This has become one of my favourite crafts at the moment.

I didn't plan this design out, I was originally just going to do rows of stitches but then a row went a bit wonky and looked a bit too much like a toadstool stem for me to resist. Then I just worked around that trying out different stitches along the way.

I love the fern stitch, it is probably my favourite stitch because it just looks so cute! I have to admit I did have to look up how to do a french knot on youtube because my lefty brain was struggling with the diagram even with a mirror.

I tried three different versions of the satin stitch here, I liked the first one better, I think that one was the 'padded version', It just seemed to work out the smoothest.

I need way more practise with the stem stitch, as you can see on the left hand of this toadstool, it is all a little bit wonky. The frill just under the lid was added later when I realised the stem and lid would never be connected otherwise. But that is one of the things that is so great about embroidery, it is so versatile and you can turn your mistakes into features.

Twinkle stitches are also one of my favourites! They are so fun and quick to do, I would love to add some sequins or crystals to this kind of stitch. The back stitch, whilst maybe a little boring, can create some lovely shapes as well.

I love, love, love embroidery! I have started another piece on paper this time for a little present for Ed, it is nearly finished so I will be posting that up when it is. I would really recommend the book, Embroidery Effects it breaks all the stitches into simple steps and I have found it really inspiring.  

The Treasure that came in the Post.

I've had some rather lovely packages in the post the last two days. Yesterday my first package came with my Embroidered Effects book, I am a bit of a craft-holic and I never feel satisfied with the amount of crafts that I know/ have had a go at. I've recently been doing some cross stitch which I have really loved but I sometimes feel that it is a little regimented. So I thought that maybe it would be fun to have a go at embroidery as it seems a lot freer. There is an amazing project in this book where you stitch over a photo you have transferred to fabric, I have been inspired to have a play with this idea with some of photos from our wedding. 

The second package of treasure came today, it was a whole bunch of photos my mum had snapped at our wedding. It made a really nice change to have the pictures actually printed, I'm so used to having pictures digitally I had kind have forgotten how sentimental hard copies could be. I think I might make a photo album to put them in so our wedding memories are safe forever.