Robin and whale

A big hello to anyone reading this- it's been ages since I last posted. I have moved down to Cornwall, started a new job and there has been a lot going on lately, which is why I haven't been posting regularly lately but I thought I'd pop by and share some recent stitches.

 I stitched this little guy over Christmas whilst I was feeling festive!  It has reminded me how much I love stitching birds.
The colours aren't perfect because I just used what I had to hand but I quite like the orange flecks through his red breast.

I've also been sketching whales a lot lately- I've fallen in love with them! I made this tiny felt embroidery based on a sketch. 

(Scuse my bony fingers- they are there for scale ;) )

I might make him into a brooch- I think he is cute.

 I have the feeling whales are going to feature in my stitching a lot this year. It's about time whales were 'in'; we have had an owl trend,a fox trend, birds on everything, everywhere so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a whale trend!!

Illustration Stitchalong piece

This quarter we did a free choice on the illustration stitchalong and I chose to stitch up a Matt Sewell illustration from the book Our Garden Birds. I thought it lent itself to wool embroidery- these are all Appleton Crewel Wool threads. The bright sunlight here shows where I've used two colours together in the needle for a blended, tweedy effect- it's actually a lot more subtle in real life. This little guy is so cute it is begging to be made into something else- I think it might end up on a tea cosy or something.
This round of the stitchalong has been a bit quieter than the Edward Gorey and Tim Burton ones but I think more people will join in next round for Dr Seuss stitching!!

Uh Oh

This piece is far from finished but I'm sharing it now because I have had a bit of a mishap with it. As you can see there is some cross stitch on the woodpecker and I used soluble  canvas to achieve it (LOVE that stuff!) unfortunately when I rinsed away the canvas the thread I've used for the wood has run creating a pinky brown halo around the stitching.
Is it salvageable? Maybe. I think my options are a) bin it, b) paint in the background to conceal the stain c) have the piece completely filled in with stitching including the background - it isn't a huge piece so doable. My gut instinct is that I should go for option c but I'm not feeling excited at the idea of all that fill stitch. Any better ideas?

By they way the woodpecker is complete there is shading to do and detail to be added to the face- he will hopefully look a lot better once that is done, and once he has some legs of course! I also plan to break up that big expanse of tree with some details but not sure what I'm going to do yet.

Has this ever happened to you? Were you able to save the piece or not?

bee hummingbird embroidery

Bee hummingbirds are the worlds smallest bird- 5-6cm from the tip of their beak to the end of their tail. I made this for jessicakelly for a Phat Quarter swap on the theme of 'tiny'. He may only be small but I packed in loads of different stitches and detail by using only 1 strand of floss.
Playing with scale enabled me to really play around with different stitches. I often try and make my birds as lifelike as possible so it was good fun to get creative with some pattern and I like the effect. I'm not sure how this would work on a bigger scale but it would be interesting to try- the textures would look nice in crewel wool in linen I think.

bluetit stumpwork

So things have been quiet on the blog for a few weeks. This is because I had been working on Christmas gifts and didn't want to spoil the surprise for the recipients!

I made this blue tit for my mum and dad. It is always difficult to decide what to make for people but as my folks enjoy feeding the garden birds and my mum had admired previous bird stumpwork embroideries I decided to go for a bluetit. I think this is one of the best I have done- I painted the background with fabric paints and this time I was very pleased with how it looks. The branch is wool felt with lots of french knots in hand dyed silk thread to give the effect of moss. The bird is a padded slip worked in stem, satin and split stitch.
I couldn't afford to spend a lot of money getting it framed so bought a simple box frame which allows for the 3D nature of stumpwork. I know some people don't use glass when framing embroidery but I don't usually like frames without glass in them- it just looks wrong to my eye!

The good news is that they liked it!

I will do another post soon about another handmade present I made. Maybe 2013 will be the year I manage to blog more regularly!! Happy New Year to you all xxxxxxxx

Magpie finished (probably!)

 I say it's finished but I keep picking it up and adding a few stitches here a few stitches there. If I'm honest I wonder if it is a bit overworked but then I keep seeing little tweaks I could make. I was feeling quite disappointed with it but then I looked at it from across the room and thought it looked nice so I think maybe the really detailed wing is a bit distracting up close. I was enjoying all those blues whilst stitching and I got a bit carried away.

 The magpies body is a padded slip. My favourite thing is the tree stump- it is couched silk strings and wool and is very tactile!!

 I painted the background with fabric paints. This was an experiment and I will make it lighter next time I do this but I like the overall effect.
I have started something else, an urban threads pattern (I don't often use patterns but Urban Threads has some great ones I couldn't resist). It was nice to not have to plan for a change just choose a pattern... transfer.. go! As you can see I have stitched the outlines and I quite like how it looks left plain but I am going to start filling it in using some muted colours.

I should really be thinking about Christmas crafts but am still at the planning stage- have you started your Christmas crafting yet?

bluejay stumpwork

Made for an embroidery swap on Craftster (yep, I am a swapaddict). I used linen fabric for the background and felt for the branch. I don't think I'd ever looked at a bluejay before- we don't have them in the UK. They are so pretty with all the different shades of blue. 

I used the padded slip technique I've used before, so he stands up from the fabric a bit. I like how it looks but am starting to play around with different ways of doing backgrounds for stumpwork to add more interest. 

I have several projects on the go right now but will have significantly less crafting time now as I go back to work next week. I've been on maternity leave for the past year so have been able to do some stitching during nap times - I will miss that!!

The boys turned 1 and 3 last week so it's been a busy time but lots of fun and I made my first 'proper' birthday cake- as in a cake that is meant to look like something. Maybe I'll post a photo here but I reckon it might end up on CakeWrecks if I do- I won't be turning into a food blogger anytime soon. Jake loved his yellow robot though :) 

Despite the reduction in crafting time I have decided to work towards opening an Etsy shop. I want to stock some embroidery, a little jewelry and some cross stitch and embroidery patterns. Am aiming to have my shop open towards the end of September. Any volunteers to test patterns once they are ready- this won't be for a while, maybe August time? I have a lot of work to do before I can set up my shop properly- any advice will be gladly received- and I need to get cracking on stock (once I have got a few swaps out of the way ;) ) What do you all think I should be stitching for my store? Do ya reckon embroidered brian blesseds would be a good seller?!!

And in other exciting news my boxing hares were featured on &Stitches alongside the supertalented MotherEagle go take a look!

Day of the dead owl

This is the other item I made for the Craftster needlework swap. My partner had lots of owls and lots of day of the dead stuff on her pinterest and so I designed this. I sketched out a very basic owl on graph paper and then added loads of decoration. I then used a sulky transfer pen to transfer my design onto my the felt. He is backed with a sugar skull design fabric and stuffed with toy filling. I might try and scan my pattern and add it to this post as a pdf if anyone wants it?

I like the teeth/beak the best - I was very pleased with how that looked - I was feeling very smug as I was stitching that bit up !!

The boys loved it too- all those bright colours they thought it must be for them right? I managed to rescue it before Rory dribbled on it!

stumpwork sparrow

This is part of my swap package for the Anything Goes Needlework Swap on Craftster. My partner loves sparrows so I knew I wanted to do make a sparrow embroidery. I also recently bought the RSN guide to stumpwork and so the two fused together pretty nicely. I have to also give credit to this tutorial that I found incredibly useful, especially as it uses a bird for the example so it showed me how to add details at the end.  As a first attempt I think this worked really well  and I was pleased with my stitching on the bird, I wanted it to look realistic. The twiggy branches are tapestry wool couched on with embroidery thread, this looks really nice but the wool shows through a little from the back of the linen so next time I'll hoop up some cotton or calico behind the linen to avoid this.

Here is a detail to show how the bird is three-dimensional;

Please excuse the creases in the photos- I did iron the piece before sending and mounted it in a flexi-hoop but I don't have any photos of this.

swaps

This is a busy embroidery month as I'm doing two swaps. The first is organised by Wild Olive, it's huge there are over 100 people taking part! My head spins when I think of poor Mollie trying to keep tabs on all those swappers. We are swapping one 4 inch hoop, I used a pattern from this book but ignored the stitch guide as it wasn't a filled in design.
The chest on the bird is my first ever attempt at needlelace it was semi-succesful but some of the holes are a bit bigger than others. Overall I'm pleased with the finished piece although it's not really my style. I picked a design and colour palette that I thought my partner would like and it's a bit too pale for me. I wish I'd tea dyed the fabric because I think that would have looked nicer. You live and learn.

As a little extra I made this Wild Olive style badge- too cute!

The other swap is on Craftster and I'm not going to post photos yet as I think my partner might just look at my blog and I don't want to ruin the suprise. I'm really looking forward to sharing what I've made though- I challenged myself a bit and it really paid off. Stu wanted to keep it and has told me I have to make him one.


I used to do a lot of swaps, in fact some of the best things I've made have been for swaps. I like the way it forces you to do something different. it always makes me focus on getting my stitches neat too, when I know someone else is goung to inspect them! The best swaps for me are themed because you end up making things you'd have never made otherwise. A while back I did a Phat Quarter swap (the flickr group from Mr X Stitch) which had a movie theme. I ended up doing this Twin Peaks Firewalk with Me piece which was so much fun to do that it was actually quite hard to part with. 

magpie

one for sorrow, two for joy

Magpies are my favourite bird, superstition says that singular magpies are unlucky and should be greeted with a salute and 'good morning Mr Magpie, How's your wife and children?' but I just give them a big grin and they seem happy enough with that. This fella is blackwork and is my own design - there will definitely be more magpies to come.