Tutorial Tuesday

Happy Tuesday, everyone!

Today I have a round-up of some great tutorials with techniques and stitches that are definitely worth a try! If you are looking to diversify your stitches or exercise your stitching fingers, these tutorials are sure to be of interest.

If you have mastered the chain stitch, how about trying the Hungarian Braided Chain Stitch! Sarah of Rocksea and Sarah has quite a few stitching tutorials for you to browse through, enjoy, and try out!

French knots are always fun and add great texture to an embroidered piece. The Colonial Knot, looks just as good, too! Monika Kinner-Whalen offers a great tutorial for Colonial Knots over at her Sweet Prairie Studio.

Tinting embroidery designs is a great way to add depth without having to layer on too many stitches. Urban Threads offers a fun tutorial for embroidery tinting with crayons!

A really great looking surface embroidery technique is the Casalguidi Stitch, or as they call it over at Needle'n Thread, the Really Raised Stem Stitch. There are quite a few steps involved with this technique, but the end result is phenomenal to admire. 

Hope you enjoy some of these techniques and tutorials and give them a try!

Have a wonderful Tuesday!

Tutorial Tuesday

Hello Everyone! Happy Tuesday!

We find ourselves close to celebrating the 4th of July in the States this week, and I thought it would be fun to create a tutorial for the commemoration of Independence Day. I think any color felt would look fun with this tutorial, but I stuck to red, white, and blue for this Garden Flag.

This is a good project for beginners, or perhaps young people on summer break who need something to keep their hands busy!

To make this 4th of July Garden Flag you will need:

- One rectangle of red felt (this was precut from the craft store and is 9.5 by 12 inches)

- Smaller squares of felt in white and blue

- One 12-inch long wooden dowel

- embroidery floss in accent colors, embroidery needle, and scissors

- Scissors for cutting felt

- 20-inch piece of embroidery floss or string for hanging

- Pinking shears or decorative scissors for cutting felt and fabric

- Optional: craft glue or a glue gun

As a star template, I used the largest star from the pattern for our Embroidery on Paper tutorial from a few weeks ago, which is available for you here.

Step One: Cut the largest star out of the template and use it to cut various stars out of the white and blue felt. 

Step Two: Keeping the felt rectangle with the long sides vertical, arrange the stars to your liking and pin in place. Try to keep them 2 inches away from the top. 

Step Three: Use different stitches to attach the stars to the felt rectangle. Feel free to play around here and practice your embroidery stitches. I stuck to french knots, running stitches, and split stitches, but you can use any stitch you want for this. 

Note: I didn't put my felt rectangle in a hoop, simply because felt holds its shape and has a stiffness to it that cotton fabrics don't have. If you prefer to put your felt in the hoop, I recommend removing some of the pins from the stars and working a section at a time. 

Step Four: Use the pinking shears to trim around the side and bottom edges of the felt rectangle. 

Step Five: Take a long piece of white embroidery floss and thread your needle. Start at the top of one long side and use a running stitch to create an accent along the three edges of the rectangle. The knots of this floss with be hidden once we fold the top edge over the dowel.

Step Six: Place the wooden dowel about 1.5 inches away from the top edge. Fold the felt over the dowel and pin in place. 

Step Seven: Thread your needle with red floss, and pull it through the middle of the fold of felt to hide your knot, bringing the needle up through to the front of your flag. Use a back stitch to seal this fold and encase the dowel in the felt. When you reach the other edge, hide the knotted end in the fold.

Optional: If you prefer not to backstitch this part, you can use craft glue or hot glue to seal the fold. Please account for drying time before finishing the flag.  

Step Eight: Take the 20-inch piece of floss or string, you can trim this to your liking or create a longer piece, and tie it to each end of the dowel. 

Step Nine: Your garden flag is ready for the sunshine!

Hang your flag on the garden gate or front door and get ready for the celebration!

Hope you enjoy and have a very wonderful Tuesday!

Tutorial Tuesday

Happy Tuesday, everyone!

Today's tutorial comes to you out of somewhat of a necessity in my world. I sew and stitch quite a bit and realized that I needed a thread catcher for the floss tails, threads, and fabric pieces that I snip off of my projects as I am working on them. I know I am not the only one who needs a quick place to toss the excess threads and floss while I am sewing and stitching. I am hoping you can make use of this project in your workspace as you stitch up your WIP, as well!

To make this thread catcher basket out of fabric, you'll need:
- Fabric for exterior (11 inches tall by 14.5 inches wide)
- Fabric for lining (11 inches tall by 14.5 inches wide)
- medium weight interfacing (11 inches tall by 14.5 inches wide)
- sewing machine and supplies
- scissors
- embroidery hoop, floss, and needles

I used the spool image from the Sewing Collage pattern available at Urban Threads.

Step One: Transfer the embroidery pattern to one of the front exterior panels of fabric, keeping it 2-inches from the top edge. Stitch. I used a 3-ply backstitch for this spool pattern.

Step Two: Place the exterior fabrics right sides together, with a piece of interfacing on the wrong side of each exterior piece. You should have a fabric sandwich with interfacing, exterior piece right side up, exterior piece right side down, then a piece of interfacing on top of that. 

Step Three: Sew around the three sides of the exterior and interfacing using a 1/2-inch seam allowance, leaving the top open. 

Step Four: To create a flat bottom for our fabric basket, take one bottom corner and fold it so the seams are laying flat against each other. 

Mark 2.5-inches from the center of the seam, where there is a V. Stitch straight across using the 2.5-inch mark as a guide. 

Clip the excess fabric away. Repeat for other side.

Step Five: Take the interior or lining pieces of fabric and place them right sides together. Stitch along the three edges with a 1/2-inch seam allowance, leaving a 2-inch space open along the center of the bottom edge. 

Step Six: Square off the bottom of the lining as we did for the exterior in Step Four. Mark 2.5-inches from the center of the seam, where there is a V. Stitch straight across using the 2.5-inch mark as a guide. Clip the excess fabric away. Repeat for other side 

Step Seven: Turn the exterior ride sides out. Place this inside of the lining, right sides together. Stitch along the top edge with a 1/2-inch seam allowance. 

Step Eight: Flip the fabric basket right side out, by pulling through the opening in the bottom seam of the lining. 

Step Nine: It is optional for you to press this top edge. Top stitch along the top at the 1/4 inch and 1/2 inch marks. 

Step Ten: Stitch the space used to flip the fabric basket shut. 

Step Eleven: Place close to your sewing machine or work area and toss your clipped threads, floss pieces, and fabric scraps into the basket. 

I hope you enjoy this thread catcher fabric basket and take the time to make one for yourself. It really does help around the work room. 

Hope you have a great Tuesday!

Tutorial Tuesday

Happy Tuesday, everyone!

With summer on its way and so many great summertime tutorials floating around, I thought it would be good to share all these fresh and fun projects with you today!

Welcome the summer blooms with a "Bring on the Sunshine"embroidery pattern and tutorial for 3-D flowers from Crafts Unleashed.

Update summer flip flops using a whipped running stitch with Julie K's tutorial. 

Brighten up your bathroom with DesignLoveFest's embroidered shower curtain tutorial.

Bev over at Flamingo Toes has a super cute tutorial for an embroidered map of the USA with a chevron print. Would make for a great 4th of July display!

Hope you are able to check some of these out and give them a try!

Have a great Tuesday!

Tutorial Tuesday

Happy Tuesday, everyone!

I have a super fun tutorial for you today. Embroidery on paper! This is more of a how-to and this technique can be used to turn almost any pattern for stitches into a pattern for embroidery of paper.

To embroider on paper you will need:

- Paper (I used notebook paper, but card stock works well, too)
- Foam core (I used a scrap piece from a different project)
- tape
- Chenille needle
- 6-strand embroidery floss in 3-ply
- Sharpie or marker of choice
- Star pattern

Step One: Print out the star pattern, or your pattern of choice. Use your marker to create dots evenly spaced apart on the lines of the pattern. The dots will be the places where the needle and floss will pass through the paper. (I used the stars available as auto shapes in a word document, and couldn't remove that shadow, so I apologize if it makes the photos appear blurry. The dark thick line is the one we're working with).

Step Two: Place the paper with the pattern on top of the notebook paper and tape it where you want to transfer the pattern. Place the foam core underneath the notebook paper. 

Step Three: Using a chenille needle, or thick needle with a sharp point, punch a hole through each dot along the pattern line. You may want to use thimbles for this, depending on the thickness of the paper.

Step Four: Carefully remove the tape and pattern from the paper, and move the foam core. Your pattern should look something like this.

The notebook paper should look like this.

Step Five: Thread a needle with 3-ply floss, and you can begin backstitching the pattern. Be careful not to pull the floss too much or it could rip the paper. Move slowly and flip the paper back and forth in order to make sure you are stitching along the correct place in the pattern. 

Step Six: Send this as a note, or use it as a very sophisticated doodle! Use this technique on card stock for birthday or special occasion cards. 

Hope you enjoy and give this a try!

Hope you have a great Tuesday!