Patterns: Alphabet Motif Club

Carina is half way through her alphabet motif club, but you can still join in and download the earlier letters. I love how colourful these are and I think they'd make a great quilt!

Edited to add (sorry, me being forgetful and forgetting the link!) - you can find Carina's Alphabet Club here.

Fabulous K

stitched by Kyle J. Letendre

This fabulous K is described by Kyle as his "first go at embroidery!" Seriously, Kyle, this is amazing work - I think you need to keep embroidering. :)

Read more about Kyle's project on his blog (which is also amazing, by the way).

Easy Letter Stitching

Olá! This week I'll show you how I create patterns with numbers or letters in a very, very, simple way!
As my drawing skills are not so great I try to make my life easier using other instruments... And a word processor is of great help as you will see...

Let's begin!

1. In a new page type the letter you want to work with - the font and size font are not important so far...
2. Then select the letter you've typed and open the "format - font" window. That's what I've done with the letter "I".
3. Choose "70" for the size font, "bold" for the font style and the "outline" effect.
4. In the preview box your letter will be displayed in all its size and you'll be able to choose the best font type (if you choose a size larger than 70 you'll have your letter cut in the preview box).
5. In order to choose the font you just have to scroll down the fonts that are available in the font menu. As you are scrolling down, the final look of the letter will be previewed in the box. In this case, I decided myself for the Handwriting-Dakota.
6. You can close the window and in your document choose the font size that you want to work with.

Using the Format - Font window to choose your font

Sometimes the "Character Spacing" window is also helpful... Using the "scale" you can enlarge or narrow your letter, what is great when you have to fit it to a predefined space. And with "spacing" the same happens, particularly if you will be working with more than one letter.

I've made this Alphabet using this method - Easy! Am I right??

Alphabet created with word processor

Everyone loves a a personalized gift!! Embroidering letters (or numbers) is a great way of surprising someone you love!

That's what I've decided to do using a notebook. I used Handwriting - Dakota font, size 330, bold, outline and scale 66% in Character spacing. I had to reduce the scale in order to fit the notebook.

As always I used a notebook made in Portugal and the threads are also Portuguese.

Personalized Notebook, my photo

*In Portuguese we say letra instead of letter and alfabeto (or abecedário) instead of alphabet.

Patterns: Penguin & Fish Quiet Book

Top to bottom, left to right

1. Jil's Book Front by Dunderklumpen12
2. Jil's Book 1 by Dunderklumpen12
3. Jil's Book 2 by Dunderklumpen12
4. Jil's Book 3 by Dunderklumpen12
5. Jil's Book 4 by Dunderklumpen12
6. Jil's Book 5 by Dunderklumpen12

Dunderklumpen12 has made the most delightful little quiet book for her goddaughter's 1st birthday using (adapted) Penguin & Fish patterns. Dunderklumpen12 has used the German alphabet and has stitched out the letters of her goddaughter's name, what a lucky girl!

A quick search on Google reveals a number of different tutorials on how to make a fabric book, I think this would make a great Christmas present for the little ones in your life!

Native American Inspiration

One month ago I visited a Navajo reservation to help my sister with a ladies craft class. Each year she returns to a small one-room church with a group that does a variety of service projects like painting, re-roofing, and re-tiling as well as organizing a Bible school and sports camp.

Before we left, I found myself suffering from jitters - I'm shy, and although I enjoy sharing my love of crafting, I had no idea what it would be like, and how I would cope without my morning coffee on schedule, limited access to plumbing, no bed, and no air conditioning in 100+ degree desert temperatures. Would I be crabby? (yes) Would I accidentally curse in front of the children? (no) Would I smell bad? (sometimes) Important considerations, all. ;)

To alleviate my jitters, I grabbed a handful of floss, and a wonderful alphabet from the 1973 Handbook of Lettering for Stitchers by Elsie Svennas, and began adapting an alphabet to take with me.

Download the alphabet

The original alphabet has oodles of lazy daisy stitches, but I thought they'd be intimidating for beginners, so I traced the letter shapes and added small feather-like hashes in contrasting colors. I call it a feather-stitch alphabet, but FYI, it's not a real feather-stitch. :)

I had no idea how relaxing it would be to stitch this simple alphabet! I chose 7 neutral, lovely colors that reminded me of the desert, and brought it with me as inspiration.

From left to right, in DMC: 946, 611, 954, 834, 3824, 832, and 3853.

Now, on to some photos from the ladies craft class... We met only for a short time each day, so I was only able to snap in-progress shots. They took their projects home to finish or would work on their favorites each day - I so wish I had finished pics to show you, but this gives you a taste of the stitching we did.

I had tons of gorgeous floss a wonderful person sent me years ago -after the class, we asked the ladies to take it home with them. I loved that I was able to pass on the generosity of one lovely person to these talented ladies.

For weeks, I'd sat in front of my television, cutting out felt flower shapes from 2 free Purl Bee templates, found here and here, to use in our crafts.

I loved how much fun everyone had incorporating these bright, colorful shapes in their projects:

I loved the creative way the ladies incorporated traditional Navajo designs in all of their projects, always making them their own. This woman is also a talented weaver, by the way:

I fell in love with this stitcher - each project we tried, she gave it her all and worked with patience, sweetness, and creativity:

More of her impossibly tiny stitches:

Every person I met was very gifted and creative, and would use projects as a springboard for incredibly detailed, beautiful work. I know I will carry the memory of their creativity and skill with me as an inspiration to make my work my own.


Lastly, how can I possibly summarize the beauty of the desert? I just can't. You have to see it. My pictures only sort of help. I warn you that you must see it yourself.

Hope you enjoyed a little bit of Native American inspiration!

Patterns: Daisychains ABC Crewel Work Pattern Sampler

Daisychains ABC Crewel Work Pattern Sampler by Alicia Paulson

Last month Alicia Paulson over at Posie Rosy Little Things launched the Daisychains ABC Crewel Work Pattern Kit, which sold out like hot cakes, but luckily she now has the pattern for the very same sampler in her shop, so we can still recreate it, hooray! I've already treated myself to the pattern and it's not often you see quite that much instructional detail in a pattern .pdf, so I can't wait to get stitching and try some new stitches.

I can thoroughly recommend checking out all the Posie Rosy Little Things site, as there are lots of other gorgeous patterns including some free ones!

Today's program was brought to you by the letter:

stitched by What Delilah Did

Is it just me or is cross-stitch getting more beautiful?

Cross stitch letters

stitched by incywincystitches

This pile of cross stitch letter buttons just fills me with glee.