comfortstitching

a tree full of stitches

Its been a busy few days involving 12 year old birthdays, quilt guild meetings and the bank holiday but I'm finally here to put the terrific (or perhaps the terrible) into your Tuesday with the aid of a few dozen embroidery stitches disguised as a tree.

After completing all of the embroideries for my book it has been a total charm to be able to stitch for once without having to think about writing up a pattern or tutorial or wondering if the stitches are too difficult or too boring.

I think you can see how liberated I feel not having to do that just by looking at the above because all it says to me is 'my brain is very happy indeed'.

All of the floss colours are by Cosmo again, this one uses pretty much the same palette as I was using in the piece I started last week.

The other thing that totally made my weekend?   My newly 12 year old daughter went shopping with friends and spent some of her birthday money on some surprise tulips for me.

How sweet is that??

spilling the beans

Ta-da!!  May I introduce you to my new book 'Little Stitches.  It is being published by Stash Books and will be out in August of this year.  The book includes all the basics on embroidery plus tips and techniques, 12 projects and over 100 patterns.

More details will be revealed over the next few months but for now I'm just happy to be able to say all that out loud.

hello robin

Or for another title, how about 'Yep! I stitched another embroidery' (most likely when I really should have been concentrating on something else entirely).

Or Yep! I really do have robin fever and am addicted to stitching and drawing the little rosy bellied souls.

I'm starting to think my motto could be 'there's always room for another stitch' (or maybe that could be my epitaph??).

Any how if you are feeling a little urge to festive stitch the hours away yourselves, you can find a new set of Crimble-tastic patterns right here.  These are all fairly tiny in size (about a couple of inches each way) because you don't need me to tell you how busy we are all about to get being all jolly and such in the weeks to come.

Now if only real snow was made of french knots (sigh).

overload

My brain has been in overload mode for way too long now and I'm starting to feel like the cogs in my head are slowly becoming reluctant to turn.  I would love to have a day when I don't have a to do list twice as long as my arm but until that golden day arrives I have been allowing myself a few short minutes a day to partake in a little chunk of embroidery time and to think of nothing more taxing than what colour floss is to be used next.  I love the way all those few minutes at a time have slowly evolved into a couple more finished embroideries.  

No clue as to what I'll do with these yet, I might even leave them just as they are and start on another.

no excuse not to be busy

Three reasons that mean you have no excuse to be busy this week,

I have finally got around to making up a pattern for my girl on a bicycle embroidery.  This pattern originally appeared in the July 2010 issue of UK magazine SewHip.  You can find the pattern here.

If however you like your patterns to be of the free kind, you just might be interested in taking a look at my tutorial for making a zig zaggy blanket like the one below.  This tute has now been re-added to my tutorials page.

Finally, I'm also adding the pdf for making this cutie little pillow.  This project was dreamed up and made by the awesome-ly skilled hands of Debbie Duckworth at Moda, based on my embroidery of the girl from my round and round pattern.  The pillow is an excellent way to use up a handful of 2 1/2" squares.  

 

With Christmas creeping up around the corner (can you see it already, sneakily hiding right behind Halloween???) you just might know the perfect little girl who would appreciate one of these decorating her bed??????

Download Little apples pillow

There you go, three perfect reasons not to have an excuse to not be busy!

hula hoops and bookworms

 

Please Note:

You are currently reading posts tagged under the category 'My Embroidery Designs' only.

You can reach my blog home page with all recent blog entries HERE.

 

Right before market, here in the UK we had a burst of 'not-seen-very-often' unseasonably brilliant warm summer sunshine weather.

It was glorious, from what I could see indoors, stuck as I was sewing for market.

As soon as professionally possible I hatched a plan to get outside and sit in the sun with several iced coffee's update my embroidery patterns with some new apple varieties.

These are what I came up with, a hul-lula-looping girl with a pink jacket on. Modellled on both my daughter's and their hula hooping ways.

And a little girl with curly hair reading a book, who I have now decided looks like she should be named Bella.  Modelled on my littlest daughter who is a bit of a book worm and used to have curly hair that grew straight (but is not called Bella).

As well as some clothes (modelled on some of my youngest's favourite satorial styles).

This little lady you know already from last week.

This is how I spent most of last week, lightbox and pencil sharpner at the ready putting the finishing touches to some new patterns.

Which you can find in the shop (not listed yet but will be soon-ish)  Done!.

sweet

As you may know if you have been here before, I have a complete and utter devotion to embroidery.  I have stitched up a good number of pieces over the last couple of years but I have a confession.

Most of them are lying about here, there or somewhere else still waiting to be stitched up into a little something.  Stitched and then neglected.  Sad isn't it.

So, it's time for things to change, I'm going to start to give these stitchy bits homes to live in.  I've begun already with this cushion I stitched up for market which makes me so happy everytime I look at it because I get to SEE all the fun little details instead of them being hidden away.

I'd love to hear your idea's? what do you do with the embroideries you stitch up? I'd love a few suggestion's for things to make them into.  

In case you fancy stitching up a similar cushion, I wrote up a pattern whilst I stitched and finally managed to cook it up into a PDF.  The instructions can be used with any embroidery pattern and go through piecing the cushion front, quilting and assembly, you can find it here.

little apples!!!!!!!!!!!

May I introduce to you a peek at my new fabric line with Moda?

Without further ado, a look at the collection,

 

'Little Apples' is what I came up with when I was asked to design a collection for fall.  I took the idea of fall literally and came up with a group around this theme, kind of interpreted through the eyes of children.  So we have kids playing games in the park, apple trees, tortoises talking to snails, autumn outfits and a few simple fun co-ordinates to go with.  

You might also reconize the dancing quartet???

It's a much bolder and more graphic look than 'sherbet pips' with a strong bright colour story.  I've been doing a little sewing with 'the apples' over the last few days and they are FUN prints to play with.

This group will debut at quilt market next month and goes on sale in the fall.

So what do you think??

Got any room left in your stash for a few of the 'little apples'????????

As always, I would love to know your thoughts??????

hula-lula-loop girl

Yesterday mid-afternoon, my youngest daughter (age 7) came into the front room and said 'I wanna do some sewin', I wanna make a hula lula loop girl'.

She wouldn't take no for an answer, she HAD to do the embroidery RIGHT NOW.  We've all been there haven't we?  that mid afternoon feeling, when the idea gets planted and you absolutely have to start NOW.

My eldest daughter (age 10), understood her siblings need and urge completely and wasted no time in printing a copy of the pattern, then tracing through the lightbox on to fabric and hooping it all up for her to start.  

All I did was thread up floss for her when instructed but I am intrigued by how she stitched up her girl.  Obviously this is her interpretation of how she sees me do my embroidery - she has simply outlined the dress and hair in running stitch and then proceeded to fill the space any old how and it works in such a cute way.  I always think people assume embroidery to be a lot harder than it is, particularly fill stitching but this just goes to show we all need to let go of the rules and just play.

While little sis was busy, big sis got her needles out too...

A few days ago, she had noticed that my scoot boy pattern didn't have an accompanying photo to show how it could be done.  So she decided she would stitch one up for me!

Again, I love how she has completed it in such a simple way.  Notice the scarf stripes, she has alternated thick and thin floss with the different colours and the hair is simply outlined and then filled any old how - she hasn't got all day you know.

And the best thing of all is - how quiet my girls are when they stitch - you've got to love that sound!

round and round

This time last year you couldn't pop around to this blog without tripping over an embroidery or several, it was a full on stitchy embroiderfest for a couple of months.

And then, all my other hobbies got in the way of my floss, along with designing for Moda and the embroidering suffered a sad demise as a result.  So with enough being enough, I have dusted off my hoops and started on those little back stitches once more.  

The above little piece of stitchiness started as a series of doodles a few long months ago and shows a little quartet of young pips dancing round and round (and round and round....). My girls loved singing 'round and round the garden' and 'ring o'roses' when they were little.  Still do.

 
I am still a little unsure of my styling of the boys in the above, they are a little on the girly side aren't they? with their floppy fringed hair and silky lookin' scarves.  I dread to think how I would have dressed my daughters if they had in fact turned out to be sons...................(doesn't bear thinking about).

I've written up the pattern for the above embroidery and will be listing it any minute now.  You can find it by travelling by link and popping over to my shop. 

I am thinking of putting together a few posts on embroidery how to's and would love to know if there is anything in particular you would like to see in them?  If there is something you always wanted to know or something you just can't get the hang of.  Let me know!!!

Hope you are enjoying the Wednesdayness wherever you are!!!!!