June Stitchalong update

You guys are really knocking this stitchalong out of the park!



A mere week after sharing the June stitchalong pattern, this breathtaking version by Pumora appeared! I almost fell out of my chair, it is so gorgeous:



She was good enough to share a bit of her stitching process with us:

The narwhal was a love-at-first-sight motif so I simply had to start it instantly. Looking at the picture I had the vision of french knots as sea foam and the blue fabric. The colorscheme came quite naturally when googling narwhal photos. I liked the contrast between the very dark upper side and the almost white belly.

It took me about 4 evenings to stitch it all up. I found a fine denim fabric cut from a men's shirt which had the right shade of blue for a background. After transferring the pattern I colored the waves with a blue crayon so the darker blue of the waves would blend in and not pop out that much. I used 5 shades of blue, white, light beige and gold to stitch up everything. There weren't so many stitches inside the whale at first, but sometimes my hands don't want to stop and fill everything. It's kind of hard for me to stop and say ok that's it, no more stitches or it get's overloaded. 

The text for the parchment is still missing and I can't decide yet what to insert there :/

I think we need to click through to her finished image and suggest a phrase so she can finish that beauty! :)

Next up, I love the deep contrast in this dark blue color scheme, as stitched by Aimee:


LaWhimsy did an adorable version, with the scroll banner paying homage to her stitching skills... :)



I've been stitching along pretty steadily on my Narwhal - using sea foam greens, light teals, off-white and light gold colors:



I was inspired by all the texture I've seen in everyone's embroidery lately, so I filled my stitching in with tons of stitches. It's been great fun so far!

There's still plenty of time to download the pattern and post your progress. Remember to tag your pics "JuneStitchalong2012" and add them to the Flickr group. I'll do a final roundup with my finish soon!

Week 1

Reader's Choice Stitchalong!

Well, guys, the big day is here! After numerous reader suggestions, we winnowed it down to a top 5, and you chose the pattern you most wanted to stitch (and the winning suggestion won an awesome prize, let's not forget).

Then our talented artist friend Corvus Tristis drew it up for us, and lo and behold, a gorgeous Narwhal with tattoo script for this month's stitchalong. I think she really outdid herself, don't you? The scroll is blank so that you can include any sentiment you see fit - from "Feeling Stitchy Forever" to "Pancakes Rock." It's up to you, peeps.



She also included a color guide if you need a bit of help deciphering those gorgeous scrolly lines:


All this, for the wonderful, low low price of.... FREE! :) This is an amazing pattern - so I'd like to say thank you to everyone who voted to make this possible, and especially thank you to Tala for drawing it.

Download the Pattern

How about it? How many stitchers are we going to have joining us this month? I'd love to see how creative you get with that scroll...

To join in this stitchalong, tag your pics "JuneStitchalong 2012" and add them to the Flickr group. I'll be back a few times this month to check in and share your work and my progress. Let's get stitching!

March Stitch Along - the final post!

Here's my finished piece, the Feeling Stitchy octopus now sits proudly on a bag.

(The bag, by the way, is the Everything Tote from Heather Ross' Weekend Sewing.)

I've had such fun stitching this and even more fun seeing what you guys have come up with. We've had some fantastic bags. I love in particular the fantastic stitching of the poem on the other side of fav orite.things pool bag for her grandson (top right photo).

1. Grandson's Pool Tote, side 1, 2. Grandson's Pool Tote, side 2, 3. Feeling Stitchy March Stitch Along, 4. March Stitch Along - finished!

There has been some great choices of background material.

1. feelingstitchy octopus full, 2. March Octopus far, 3. octopuses garden?, 4. March Stitch Along: In It's New Home

And some great ways of making the pattern your own.

1. the finished sampler, 2. Gentleman Octopus- March Stitch Along, 3. March stitch along!, 4. Paul the Octopus, 5. March stitch along, 6. MarchStitchAlong

There has been such fantastic work, so my huge apologies if I've managed to miss anyone out, I'm beginning to see octopuses swim in front of my eyes! And a big thank you to Corvus Tristis for providing us with such a lovely pattern set to work with.

Meanwhile it is never too late to stitch an octopus, I personally can't wait to see how Feeling Stitchy's Floresita does with her T-shirt embroidery, as you can see she's been busy with the white transfer paper recently.

Ready to Stitch by Floresita

March Stitch Along - week 3

Here's a shot of me satin stitching those letters!

Elsewhere in the pool there have been octopuses on the most amazing background fabric.

Uploaded by mimiwilborn

And there has been gentleman octopus.

Uploaded by oztheawesomewarewolf

And footballing octopus (I love the applique footballs - you can read why the octopus is called Paul here, it's very apt!)

Uploaded by Nicky- The Stitchy Life

It's not too late to still join in with this month's stitch along, you can find the patterns (and other great examples of this pattern stitched up) if you search under the tag MarchStitchAlong on Flickr and if you'd like to have a go at satin stitching the letters like me and oztheawesomewarewolf, there is a great, very comprehensive satin stitching tutorial here from Sublime Stitching.

I will do a full round up of this month's Stitch Along next Thursday, happy stitching!

March Stitch Along!

We've been big fans of Corvus Tristis' work ever since we saw her octopus pattern pop up on Giddy99's Duvet Project, so we were very excited when Corvus kindly offered to design a free pattern for Feeling Stitchy and we were even more excited when we saw what it was!

Feeling Stitchy Octopus by Corvus Tristis

We're going to be stitching this guy here at Feeling Stitchy for our March Stitch Along, so watch out for more posts this month as I stitch this guy up and hopefully feature pics from the Embroidery Pool, as you guys stitch along to! Make sure to tag any March stitch along pictures with the tag MarchStitchAlong, so we can find you!

So, you're going to be wanting to know how to get hold of this pattern, right? Corvus has not only provided us with this lovely guy above, she has also provided us with a whole alphabet and a blank octopus, so you can use the alphabet to stitch whatever word you like under your octopus. We'd love to see what ever words you use, just remember to use that tag! You can download the .pdf featuring all the pattern variations here and the patterns will also be up on the Embroidery pool. So, a big massive thank you to Corvus for designing this pattern for us!

Patterns: From the Depths

WIP "From the Depths" by Corvus Tristis embroidered by Giddy99

Today's featured pattern is a bit of an old one, but I hadn't seen it before until it popped up recently on Flickr as part of Giddy99's Duvet Project. I love how Giddy has added her own touch to the design with running stitch.

The picture sent me straight over to the Corvus Tristis blog, where as well as this amazing pattern, there are loads more, with quite a few of the patterns having a science theme.

I can't wait to see how Giddy progresses with this pattern and I can't wait to try a few of the Corvus Tristis patterns out myself!