comfortstitching

big stitch, small stitch

During the summer, when my book Little Stitches was first released, I gave each of my daughter's their very own copy.  To my delight, they have now stitched several pieces each and I thought it might be an idea to show you a couple of these today - In case you are thinking up activities to do with your kids during those almost-here holidays.

The above picture shows two versions of the Hoot The Owl pattern - On the right is my original which is featured in the book and on the left is the one my 9 year old daughter stitched.  If you look closely, you can see that she stitched the pattern her own way, sticking to running stitch and satin stitch.  Despite the simplicity, her embroidery has so much more personality than mine.  In effect, younger children very much treat embroidery just like colouring in - only using floss instead of pencils.  I find it best to supply them with all the tools they need and then just leave them to it unless they ask for help.  I better stress here that I always sit with my daughter's when they stitch.  Usually, I'm stitching too or doing paper work or writing patterns but you can never be too careful where needles are concerned.

Here is an example of my 12 year old daughter's handiwork (again on the left).  Whilst on the right is my Sleepy Kitty from the book.  My elder daughter is far more confident in trying out lots of stitches and her embroidery has been done in all the same stitches as mine - using the pattern instructions in the book.

What I love the most about my girls embroidering is how absorbed they get in this activity.  Not only are they quiet for 15 minutes to a half hour but they seem to be very relaxed and calm for once.

And they end up with something they've practically made all by themselves.  If you really want to give them a boost, display their embroideries on a wall or propped up on a bookshelf - children love nothing better than to know you admire what they made ;)

Thankful

(Holiday snowglobe pattern from my book)

Lately there has been so much organizing and sorting going on, that there has none of the fun stuff to make my days that little bit brighter.  I think it has been at least a month since I sewed or designed anything.  The little creative person in me is sadly neglected and not very happy at all about it.  But there is stuff to be done and no-one else to do it and so the stuff has taken over.

On Saturday, I at last got the opportunity to let a little sunshine in.  Not that I got to sew but I got to teach a few lovely ladies all I know about embroidery and oh my, what a happy day I had!

The embroidery class took place at a lovely fabric shop in Islington, London which goes by the name of Ray Stitch (but honestly I would just rather call it an emporium of fabric heaven).

Even better than that, there are eats to go with those fabric treats - home made cakes, rustic breads and coffee you can sip on whilst surrounded by cloth and haberdashery galore.

The class took place downstairs - where ten of the most charismatic and fun ladies joined me for an afternoon of stitching (surrounded by even more bolts of the fabric stuff).

It was hard to believe everyone had just met because as soon as we started it seemed so did the camaraderie and everyone was chatting away like we were a group of sewists who had been meeting regularly over the last few months.

As we are edging nearer to Christmas I thought it would be fun to teach the Holiday Snowglobe pattern from my book Little Stitches and this went very well.  It's an easy pattern but fun to stitch with French Knot snow and a couple of other basic stitches.

I'm hoping to teach again at Ray Stitch in January (I'm pretty much packing my bags in my head as I speak). Update : New class has been announced -sign ups are here.

in transition

I really didn't expect to have taken so long to get back in the blogging seat.  BUT.  For the past couple of months there have been a few big changes going on in the home/family sense.  There was the slight interruption of the trip to quilt market, which was highly welcomed by me and involved a few schoolhouses, multiple book signings, an embroidery demo and a lot of hanging out (and somehow no photo's got taken of the hanging out bit so I have nothing to show but it was very much enjoyed by me).

Stash Books had a cute little display of some of the handiwork from my book.

And I got to spend some time standing on this bit of artificial grass next to a plethora of Posy precut's in the Moda Fabrics booth talking to anyone who dropped by and handing out mini charm packs.

It all went too fast and I was back home before I knew I had got there.

Sadly I crash landed back into reality with a lovely mix of jet lag, antibiotic medication for an insect bite I managed to receive in Houston airport and the biggest pile of paperwork you have ever seen.  

More on the reasons behind the paperwork next week, when hopefully it is good news.  Please keep your fingers crossed for me that it is because all is looking very wobbly at the moment.

Little Stitches

Woohooo!!!!!!!!!  My new book Little Stitches is now on sale at Amazon and I couldn't be more happy that this day has finally arrived (I know it has been selling at book and quilt shops for a few weeks already).

To celebrate I thought I would give you a few more details about the book in case you are wavering on the 'is this the book for me' tightrope.

Little Stitches is aimed at both those new to embroidery and seasoned stitchers.  In it I go over all the basics from hooping up your fabric, transferring patterns and making the stitches to tips and techniques to help you on your way.  I show you how you can embroider scarves so they look knitted (see the scarf in embroidery above), how to add decorative stitches to already embroidered areas (see sweater above) as well as tips for stitching up faces for the little children you see in my embroideries.

There are 12 sewing projects in the book, each one starts with how to make the embroidery then continues with the sewing instructions.  Following each project you get instructions for three alternative embroidery options with full instructions - So you can tailor make each project to suit your tastes.  So that's 12 sewing projects with a total of 48 embroidery projects.

To add even more bang for your buck you will also find over 50 additional embroidery pattern images at the back of the book.  So that's a total of over 100 embroidery motifs.

Want even more value?  The patterns are offered on printed pages at the back of the book, which you can trace directly onto your fabric AND also every pattern is offered as an iron on transfer pattern on pullout sheets.  So you get TWO of each pattern, one you can trace and one you can iron on - The choice is yours.

OK I could go on but I won't.  If you want to see more pictures Amazon has the 'Look Inside' option for you to have a peek ;)

One last thing - I was elated to find that I had two reviews up on Amazon already for the book (Thank you speedy reviewers :)  I know a number of you have stopped by to let me know you have already got your copies, so I would be honoured if some of you would add a review of your own and let others know what you like about it (pretty please).

For those of you in the UK - I am going to be selling a few copies of the book (signed if you'd like) from my shop.  I'll add the listing in a bit.

That's it I'll let you go, really I'd love you to stay but I won't be so greedy on your time :)

 

sew little stitches

I warn you in advance, this is going to be a very long picture heavy post.  You might need tea, several cups and perhaps a biscuit or two (or an ice lolly).

This post is all the fault of my eldest daughter.  I was unable to make quilt market earlier  this year and as you know QM is a great place to showcase a collection and illustrate how it can be used.  It gives the designer a chance to say 'this is what I was thinking when I designed this stuff'.  So one evening, when I was wittering on to my family saying maybe I should have gone to market, my daughter said 'why don't you just do a booth in a blog post when the collection comes out instead?'  Children seem to have a distinct ability to simplify stuff don't they?

So here we go, a post all about what you can do with my newest fabric (shipping this week, I think) Sew Stitchy and also a little more about how it relates to my book Little Stitches.

For starters you can make stuff to keep your notions/haberdashery bitty bobs in.

Pouches obviously, for the one in the front, I used my pale blue Chain Stitch print and overlaid it with some machine embroidery using some Aurifil 12 weight thread (you can read a few pointer's for machine embroidery here).

I also stitched up another travel sewing pouch, pattern from the book Zakka Style by Rashida Coleman Hale using my grey Hexagons print and pink French Knot Dot co-ordinate.

The little needle book uses a square from the Panel which comes with the collection, the illustrations are all drawn up to look like they were stitched. 

The pattern for sewing the needlebook comes from my book Little Stitches.  As well as over 100 embroidery patterns the book also has 12 sewing projects to make from your embroideries but they can also be used with non-embroidered fabric just as easily.

These coasters were also made using one of the sewing patterns from my book and again the little deer is cut from the Panel print.

Something else you might want to know - there is a pattern for the embroidery version of the deer above, the squirrel below and the notions on the little needlecase above (as well as several of the other illustrations used in the Sew Stitchy line) in my book.  I wanted to make the fabric and the book work well with each other, so you can make embroidered and sewn items and then co-ordinate them with projects made from printed fabric too.  Lots of ways to play with the two together.

Here is another project I made by using a pattern in my book (again the book version is embroidered) - A couple of hot water bottle covers.  For the pink one, I made a scrappy fabric using this tutorial first and then followed the sewing part of the project.

Again the little girl is cut from the Sew Stitchy panel.

This is one of my favourite things that I've made from this line - my 241 tote, using my blue Hexagons print and grey French Knot Dots.  I have used this lots and love the bag pattern (by Anna, available here).

Tissue box cover - again using a pattern from the book.

This embroidery is one I did just for fun earlier in the summer.  I used the illustration from my Stitched Bird fabric and just took a little time out to play.

This is stitched from one of the bonus transfer patterns you'll find in my book.  You can bookmark this post and come back to it later should you ever want to stitch it up. 

Pillows made from the Panel print.

And there we have it.  I hope you enjoyed my little blog post version of a booth :)

Sew Stitchy yardage is out this week and will be available from Fat Quarter Shop and The Intreprid Thread amongst other places.

My book Little Stitches is out this month and will be available from Fat Quarter Shop, Sew Mama Sew and Amazon (in September) amongst others.