Teddy Bear on a Swing Embroidery - Part Four

There is a little bit of progress to share on my teddy bear embroidery.  His face is filled in - mainly in Long and Short Stitch. 

I am experimenting on how to fill in the big tree trunk.  The whorls in the bark are made using Stem Stitch.  I am not sure if I will continue with the lines of Back Stitch to fill in all of the blank area.  As you can see from the motif, there is no line to define the left-side border of the trunk:

To finish this trunk, perhaps a sort of fading effect could be done by reducing the amount of stitches and plies of floss out to the edge...?

Color Palette Inspiration

 

You may remember from previous posts, that I keep a color palette inspiration journal.  I like to match embroidery floss to the inspiration colors.

The inspiration palette can be from anywhere - paper samples, photographs, postcards or magazine clippings. I recently found this picture of a travel poster in an old magazine.  I love the colors! 

I added this to my journal: 

To add a sample of the floss and note the color number,  I fold over the edge of the page:

punch holes

and add the floss samples:

I list the corresponding number on the back of the page.  If you are interested in the color numbers for this palette, they are {in top to bottom order} DMC 3860, 3774, 3801, 319, 3770 and 310.

Embroidered Beach Pillow Project - Part One

This beautiful linen is going to be made into a pillow cover.  First, I am embroidering some beach theme motifs on each side.  This "Beach" text inside an arrow and the line of starfish are both from my Beach House embroidery set.  

To transfer these motifs to my fabric, I would usually put them under the fabric and trace on top of the fabric with my water soluble marker.  However, since I can't see through this thick linen, I need to use another method:

Tracing paper {or carbon transfer paper} works perfectly for this application.  

To transfer, I put the tracing paper on my fabric {notice the shiny side is against the fabric and the dull side is facing up.  Then I put the motif on top and start tracing.  I have this stylus for tracing, but I have also used a ball point pen and it works just fine.

I tape the layers of fabric, tracing paper, motif down with removable tape.  This washi tape works perfectly:

The image transferred clearly and now I can start stitching! 

I haven't chosen my floss colors yet, I am thinking a combination of these blues: