Coloured flowers

Another Urban Threads pattern. For those that don’t know Urban Threads (probably not that many crafters in that category), I would say that Urban Threads are primarily a machine embroidery company but they do offer most of their patterns for hand embroidery to. Obviously it can sometimes be a little difficult to directly translate a machine embroidery design to hand embroidery, so they just offer the hand embroidery designs as line drawings, whereas with the machine embroidery patterns you’ve obviously got colour and everything. With this pattern, the machine embroidery design had the flowers (which were stitched in black, like mine) with a sort of water colour style, painted, incomplete fill, I thought I’d try and replicate that, in my own way, with a spot of applique. I quite like how it turned out (although again it’s quite difficult to really tighten the fabric across the frame when I mount it, think I did a bit of a better job than last time though), however this is me being sort of experimental and although I’m glad I did it (being itching to try this design for sometime) it’s not actually really my personal taste ….

Florophone

I was moaning the other day to 5currantbuns that my embroidery mojo had gone missing since I’d moved back to the flat and hey presto shortly after the aforementioned moaning my mojo came back, hurray!

The pattern is from Urban Threads and it was pretty much a case of me daring myself to use some bright colours that are a bit outside my comfort zone but being safe in the knowledge or at least the hope, that the brown of the gramophone would help balance it out. I think it’s worked.

(Also my first attempt at mounting my embroidery on a canvas board now that a nice new art shop, that I am a wee bit addicted to, has opened in town. I think I could probably have mounted the fabric a little tighter, but it was a little tricky as I had been stitching through two layers of fabric, as the fabric I was using was thin.)

Calendars

September House pattern

Way before I had decided I wasn’t going to be making (hardly) any Christmas presents this year I had been super organised and ordered some 2013 calendar panels from September House and well if I didn’t use them they’d have gone to waste, so this year my aunts and uncles are getting handmade but it’s the last year people!

The calendar above was stitched fittingly with the pattern from September House that goes with the calendar panel (which I now can’t find the link to).

The next calendar was stitched with a peacock from Urban Threads.

Urban Threads Pattern

And the final calendar was stitched with the Cheeky Bird pattern from June Craft.

June Craft Pattern

I ummed and ahhed about how I was going to finish them and opted in the end for using trouser hangers, I fear my aunts and uncles may think this odd, I am still pretty convinced they’re going to think the whole thing odd, I guess a generational thing, they are after all the generation that firmly gave up the mend it, fix it, make it ethos that their parents would have had and that we (or at least us legion of crafters) now have back again. Hey, oh well, if they don’t like the calendar at least they’ve got a new trouser hanger . . .

(And another problem with Christmas crafting, never any decent light)

Celtic Cross Cushion

This was a birthday present for my sister, who is a lay preacher and volunteer at her local church. It’s a celtic inspired design from Urban Threads, fabric is repro V&A and I stitched it using pearl cotton so that the effect where the lines crossed over each other was more pronounced. Not the easiest thing to do in the world though, split stitch with pearl cotton. I chose the pearl cotton colours to go with the colours in the fabric.

3 tattooed ladies, 2 swim bags and 1 cool pair of tights

My apologies for my absence; the hours on my main part time job vary from month to month and currently I’m working the equivalent of 4 working days a week (although it’s spread out over 7 days) and will be doing so until the end of September, but most of those hours are for a really cool project that I will literally be able to tell my grandchildren about, so work is busy but all good.

However I may be busy but that hasn’t stopped me embroidering, in fact it’s encouraged more embroidering because in my much needed breaks, my idea of the perfect relaxation is a spot of embroidery with a good audiobook, so I’ve been embroidering but I haven’t had much chance to get to the sewing machine to finish things off but I managed to today, so first up *drum roll*, three ladies who’ve kept me very amused in quiet moments over the last month or two.

The patterns are by Sew Lovely, from a lovely big detailed pattern set and they were a pleasure to stitch, so much so that I don’t even mind that they *whisper* don’t even go with my sofa (eek) but I’d always planned these for the bedroom. Really I need a guest bedroom, these would make fantastic guest bedroom cushions because as lovely as these are going to look in my bedroom, my bedroom is very much a working room and I can imagine I will probably be spending most of the time fishing these cushions off the floor (nothing new there). But none of that matters because these were such fun to stitch, I couldn’t resist!

Next up something of a slightly more practical nature; Boy Lacer starts swimming lessons at school this week, which is an extremely big deal, as he’s very nervous of water (going as far as not even liking rain, although he is getting better). I am confident though that he is in the best possible hands, his swimming lessons have been discussed at a number of meetings and I know he’ll have 1 to 1 support from the class’s extremely talented TA. He’s already had several preparatory visits to the pool and although he admits he’s nervous, he is not currently as freaked out as he could be (right now he’s more concerned that I’m going to forget the letter I need to write requesting that he wears swimming goggles).

Anyway, so, just as I made a swimming bag for Girl Lacer when she started school swimming lessons, I wanted to make one for Boy Lacer, I made a start on it over the school holidays but as I, on instructions from the school, was not meant to be telling Boy Lacer that he had swimming lessons the next term (so as not to freak him out over the holidays), I couldn’t ask him what design he’d like. I fell in love with this design from Urban Threads

but I was concerned that considering he’s so scared of water (although like I say, getting better), it might freak him out a bit but on the other hand, it’s such a fun, adventurous design, it might make swimming just that little bit more fun and exciting, specially as I paired it with some cool pirate fabric on the back. But just in case he didn’t like it, I knew I had to make an alternative as well. Now I’m not going completely mad, as although I don’t swim much, I could do with a swim bag as well, as Girl Lacer’s swim bag has worked so well over the last two years (she still uses it) and the shower curtain lining has worked to make it really waterproof and that has been useful. So I made a second, safer design, knowing that whichever one he didn’t want, I’d have.

This one is a September House design from the first issue of the &Stitches magazine (which I’d highly recommend by the way).

And which one did his choose?

……. the Urban Threads one. Quite relieved actually, as much as I think the Urban Threads design is cool, September House’s fish are far more me. But either way, both patterns were again a pleasure to stitch, I loved using just one colour for the Urban Threads design (a very dark brown to give it an old sepia look), just as much as I loved the genuine excuse to use some variegated thread on the water in the September House design and I always love doing a spot of chain stitch.

And finally, just because I couldn’t have a blog post title with the numbers 3 and 2 in, without a number 1, these are the tights I’m wearing today.

I think they’re really cool (and they’re from M&S).

Update 25.4.12 - school rang, Boy Lacer had his first swimming lesson today and guess what . . . he loved it!

Dragon #2

I wasn’t planning on stitching another Hoop Up inspiration piece, despite my problem with my transfer pen but then the new Baroque Punk pattern set came out on Urban Threads and they had an even better dragon, so I just had to stitch again.

Which is good, as I’ve decided I like stitching dragons (thinking about stitching another one as I type). I actually, despite cursing the pen I’d used for Dragon #1 still used the same pen this time and I realise you can see some white marks on the photo, however this piece has proved really difficult to photograph properly, I just can’t get the red right (it’s a lot darker in real life) and when you see it in real life you can barely see the white marks at all. So, I’m really happy with it, right now where did I put that next dragon pattern?

ZOMG 3 cushions!

Pattern : Urban Threads, Location : inside flap of a plain canvas bag I plan to personalise with embroidery, Done: for the hell of it

Yep, it’s that Christmas sewing time of year again, the beginning marked by my dad’s birthday, this is what I made him (at least it’s not a tea towel).

The embroidery pattern is by This Tiny Existence and was fun to stitch. My dad likes gardening, hence the choice of embroidery pattern and the tree fabric used (a V&A reproduction and Joel Dewbury) because my dad’s garden has a lot of trees in it and well, flowers are just sissy, on cushions anyway, if they’re for my dad.

Some close ups of the embroidery.

The outlining blackwork followed by all that satin stitching took ages, so I feel like (if I already had them) putting one of these on the cushion. Not so much though as I want to put a ‘this took ages to make’ label on these cushions below though, even though they were technically simpler.

These are for an aunt and a great aunt and once again I question why I bother? As I really don’t think these will be appreciated, not that I get thrown insults at every time I make a handmade gift for the older generation of my family, I am just more firmly believing, every year, that at least my older generation don’t get the whole handmade thing and maybe I should all just buy them tins of biscuits.

Anyway, these embroidery patterns are by Ryan Berkley for Sublime Stitching, I particularly like the blackbird (which I see now, having gone back to link to the pattern listing, is actually a robin, hmmmmm). I also like the cat but I so should not have chosen that green on her jacket.