Rowandean Protea WIP

Here's a shot of one of my current embroidery WIPs. It's the Protea kit from Rowanean Embroidery.

Hand dyed embroidery kit

 No, I didn't dye this beautiful fabric and thread. I think this was a kit from Stevie Walker. I've gotten rid of the packaging now, and I made this a few months ago, so I can't be sure.

 This was a lovely kit which was quite nice and quick to stitch, once I figured out French knots once and for all.

Rowandean Poppies

This is a little kit I got at the Festival of Quilts last year. It came from Rowandean Embroidery, and was a complete kit with preprinted fabric. It was a very nice and relatively easy stitch.

Guild raffle bag

I think I mentioned it before, but in case I didn't I joined the Embroiderer's Guild nearly a year ago now. Each month at the guild meetings the Birmingham branch has a raffle. Last year we had one tote bag that a member would design and every body else would bring something to put in it. This year we're having two raffle bags a month, a big one and a little one. Each month has a colour theme, and for the January meeting the colour was red, and I chose to decorate the little bag.

I used a rose grahpic I found online, printed it, cut out all the petals, and used these as templates to cut fabric. I used Bondaweb to attach each petal to a piece of calico, used a bit of batting and another piece of calico behind it, then went around each petal with a zig-zag stitch a couple of times. Finally, I zigzagged around the edge of the square and used Bondaweb and a bit of invisible thread to attach it to the bag.

I was quite pleased with the outcome!

Christmas Robin

Sometimes I get an idea stuck in my head and I have to make it. That's what happened with this robin, I had been messing around with little appliquéd birds and then I thought I could make a big version. He is machine appliquéd and quilted, measuring about 16.5"x16". Here's a close up of the quilting:

I think the photos don't quite do him justice, he looks much nicer in real life.

Princess Bubblegum

A year or so ago I embroidered Finn and Jake from Adventure Time. Since then I've been wanting to embroidery Princess Bubblegum and Lady Rainicorn. So here's PB, maybe Lady will happen soon!

Festival of Quilts: Wandering Vines

The second workshop I attended was called Wandering Vines and was a machine embroidery workshop. The workshop was taught by Catherine Nicholls. This was about using the buttonhole stitch (or blanket stitch) to embellish applique and free motion embroidery to quilt and further decorate the piece.

I had a lot of fun and managed to "finish" the piece in the workshop. I think I will bind it and have it as a small wall hanging!

Previously:
Festival of Quilts: The Haul
Festival of Quilts: Mini Mosaic

Flower Garden

The Birmingham Embroiderers' Guild are having their summer party next Monday, and a competition is being held with the theme 'happy days'. My initial idea was to stitch something related to Happy Days, that didn't quite work out as I couldn't find my heat transfer pen to transfer something onto denim. I then just started machine embroidering flowers onto the denim, and from there grew the above flower garden.

I embroidered the flowers first, and then quilted it with green on the front and pink on the back. I used an old skirt from the backing fabric and the denim came from a favourite, but worn out, pair of jeans. The binding fabric comes from the last Bolt End Club package I received.

Crash Bandicoot mini quilt

My blog finally lives up to having the title of 'Video Game Handicrafts' again!

I had the idea to make a bright Crash Bandicoot quilt, inspiration which struck while watching Michael play Crash Bandicoot on the Playstation 1. The whole quilt is approximately 19.5"x19.5".

Crash is hand embroidered using DMC stranded cotton. 

I used fleece again instead of batting, and backed it with the vibrant fabric above.

I'm really pleased with the outcome, and all my practice with binding really paid off! It is far from being perfect but as my first time using piecing, quilting and binding in one project I think it is great.


Crash has already been featured on the Sprite Stitch blog!

Hobbycrafts, Sewing & Stitch - Workshops pt. 2 Silk Shading

The second workshop we attended was run by the Royal School of Needlework and was a beginners session on silk shading.

We each got a little kit with all the threads and a piece of calico to work on. 

Here's where I got up to after one hour. I've got a lot of refining to do, but I learned a lot.

Hobbycrafts, Sewing & Stitch - Workshops pt.1 Machine Embroidery

At the shows we took part in some workshops, the first one was a free machine embroidery workshop. First we got a go with some plain calico. I had a lot of fun and felt I had much more control this time than I did previously. 

Then after that we got a little time to make a purse. 

The fabric we embroidered onto for the purse is a stiff felt called 'moulding' or 'forming' felt. It was hand dyed by the lady that ran the workshop an was a joy to work with! 

This workshop really confirmed my thoughts about buying a new machine. I need to do more free motion embroidery!

Drinky Time coasters

I got this idea one morning when I woke up at 3am. It's not a great time to have a brainwave, but at least I had a few hours to work on it before I needed to get ready for work!

I made these for my boss's birthday, she was very happy with them! Can you tell what each drink is?

Machine Embroidery

First ever attempt at free machine embroidery!

Last weekend my mum and I went off to a workshop by Claire Muir for basic free machine embroidery. I had a lot of fun. I especially enjoyed filling in the dragon flies that had been stamped onto fabric for us.

We worked with some fancy Janome machines which had a button to bring the needle up and down, an automatic needle threader, and a button for cutting the thread. What luxury! In the sewing machine shop beneath the studio I had a go with a Brother Innov-is 35 and later my mum's Innov-is 20LE and I've fallen in love. Now I'm thinking about spending my hard earned money!

Trying out my mum's Brother machine

Quilted mug rug

After seeing the little tutorial in Cross Stitcher for quilted coasters, I've been having a lot of fun playing with quilting and embroidery. I made this for my mum.

Craft stash haul

Today we went to a garage sale because it was advertised as having 100s of needlework kits. It was no lie! We got a great haul, several cross stitch kits, latch hook kits, tapestry kits and more. Check out the video below to see what I got.

Not bad, eh? I counted up how much all of it would have been originally worth, and it's about £400, and we got it for £26!

Finn & Jake embroidery

I wanted to do some more embroidery, as I haven't done any in a little while, and was inspired to make some portraits when I found the cute little frames. So after much umming and ahing, I decided to stitch up Finn and Jake, my favourite cartoon duo, from Adventure Time.

More fun with hand embroidery.

I'm taking a break from Peacock Lady again as I've finished with all the colours I had on-hand and worked on a little embroidered 'E' instead. I really enjoyed seeing this one come along and am really proud of my raised satin stitch.

What do you think?

Pattern is from Needle 'n Thread, embroidered onto white cotton with DMC stranded cotton using one strand.

Baroque Punk Dragon

A little while ago I posted about The Rainbow Girl threads my mum gave me. I held on to them for quite a while, just admiring them but not daring to do anything with them. I had been thinking about doing some kind of fantasy embroidery with them, a dragon or a phoenix or something, but I just couldn't find a pattern.

A couple of days ago it struck me to have a look on Urban Threads, as they have such a variety of hand and machine embroidery patterns. I found this Baroque Punk Dragon there and fell in love with it.

I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it once I finished it last night until I saw these series of videos on fabric journals by Teesha Moore. I think once I've got all the necessary ingredients I will have a go at this.

The Chao Trio

Here's all three Chaos framed in their hoops and ready to go to Retrogamebeurs Deurne!

Rupture Farms badge second version

Here's the second version of the Rupture Farms badge. Looking much better now, don't you think?

I think this might be the definitive version. I might be making a few more of these for my stall at Retro Beurs Deurne as they are reasonable quick to stitch up. I'm also working on another Oddworld logo, so stick around for that, it'll be up in a day or two (hopefully!).