Thursday, October 22, 2009

New Project!


I have just added a new non-embroidery item to my Etsy shop. I think that so many of my embroidery patterns would look nice as images - full color, high quality images that could be used for all types of projects. Projects such as scrapbooking, journal embellishing, stationery elements, labels, tags etc. So the first set I put together is this Merry Christmas gift tag packet.


I used many of the embellishment patterns from my Merry Christmas embroidery pattern packet. I printed them out on a heavy cardstock paper, cut them out and embellished them with glitter glue. I also included a square template and a circle tempate that are appropriately sized to be decorative back or bottom layers for the tags. I printed these out on complementary colored paper and cut them out. I even used some scalloped-edged scissors on some of them. I am definetly going to use them as gift tags for my Christmas presents this year!

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

100 Stitches - Bullion Stitch

The next stitch in my 100 Stitches project is #53 the bullion stitch. This stitch is in the "knotted stitches" section of 100 Stitches - right after #52 - the french knot. Since I know how to do a french knot and it is one of my favorite stitches, I thought this bullion stitch would also be easy and fun to do :( However, no matter how many times I read the written instructions or followed the diagram, I came up with this:

I finally consulted an embroidery technique book that I had checked out from the library and it was a bit more helpful. I was pleased to see that this library book categorized the bullion knot as a level difficult - for experienced stitchers. I still wasn't able to make a good enough bullion knot though, so I watched a demonstration on the wonderful http://www.needlenthread.com/ website! After watching the demonstration twice I was able to do this:

This actually is a very easy and fun to do stitch once you understand how it is done. I love the way those stitches in the above picture are arranged - I think that if I had done them in a pale purple color and added a green stem, this would make a perfect lavender stalk!

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Merry Christmas! Embroidery Pattern Packet

My newest hand embroidery pattern packet is ready to go. It is titled Merry Christmas!





I love all the patterns in it and especially the beautiful ornaments of the main pattern. Here is what they look like stitched in gorgeous but always frustrating metallic floss:
There are a ton of embellishment patterns included in this packet - here is a close up of the wreath pattern - I am busy stitching up more of the included patterns and I will post the pictures as I complete them!


Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Christmas WIP

I am organizing some of my Christmas project supplies! I just love this metallic thread - some I already had and some are the new colors I just bought. Metallic thread comes in so many beautiful colors!


I also have a new wip :)