PUSH Contest Winners

Priest stitched by David Hill

Penny Nickels just announced the winners in the PUSH Stitchery Contest on her blog and I have to say I'm pretty blown away by the submissions - you're looking at the 2 winners of the contest, David Hill and Lord Libidan. Penny commented on the beautiful, painterly Van Gogh lines in this piece, and I have to agree with her - I'm in awe of David's skills. Truly painting with thread here.

Transformer stitched by Lord Libidan

Yeah, your eyes do not fool you - that is a fully transforming Transformer, stitched painstakingly on plastic canvas. Seriously, think of the architecture that went into that piece.

But every bit as amazing are the 2 runner-ups:


Tattoo sleeve stitched by Di Ellis


Hair stitched by Stefanie M.

Penny is featuring essays by the stitchers on their work on her blog - go on over there and check it out.

Thanks, Penny, for hosting such an awesome contest - be sure to check out PUSH Stitchery the next time you're in a bookstore - it looks like MrXStitch and amazing contributors like Penny have made an awesome book that will not disappoint!

Patterns: Breast Cancer Charity Patterns

Pink ribbon - pattern by Emily Peacock for Breast Cancer Care and Cross Stitcher (stitched by me)

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and I've found two great Breast Cancer awareness patterns where the proceeds go straight to charity. The first is a pink ribbon cross stitch pattern designed by Emily Peacock for Cross Stitcher magazine. You can download the pattern for a donation here. All proceeds go to the charity Breast Cancer Care.

Breast Cancer Fundraiser Embroidery Pattern by Happy Sew Lucky, stitched by Krista Hennebury

All proceeds from this pattern by Berene from Happy Sew Lucky, go to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. You can read about the story behind the pattern here on Happy Sew Lucky's blog, definitely worth a read for some moving art work from Berene's mum, Rosemary Sellars.

September Stitch-along | The wrap-up!

With only a little over two weeks left before the big, spooky day, we wanted to wrap up our September stitch-along by showcasing some of the amazing finished products that can be found in our Flickr group. We hope that everyone stitching along enjoyed this fun Halloween project, and that everyone who didn't get a chance to embroider their own pieces were still able to draw some Halloween inspiration from our posts.

(Don't forget: you can still find the pattern in our kick-off post!)

First up, the finished piece by the pattern artist herself, Cathy Gaubert! A felt ghost? Black & white stripey tights on the cat? The cuteness is almost too much to bear!

We're loving this little mini quilt by Flickr user suesueb, who machine quilted a little label right on the front of the piece!

Here's another beautiful little mini quilt made by Marianne Penner (~maripen on Flickr). See the second picture for more detail of Marianne's awesome quilting.

The pattern looks fantastic framed in an oval hoop, as shown here in a piece stitched by Jana (megmormel on Flickr):

This finished piece is all hooped up and ready to be hung for the holidays, made by LindsayPindsay:

This embroidery on black fabric is especially effective. It almost looks like it's glowing! (by letscallitlove):

The only thing better for a Halloween stitchery than black fabric is orange fabric! Check out this mini quilt by simonedk:

Highlights of this next piece by Kristin (Sew Technicolor) include her use of metallic silver floss for the ghost and the inclusion of candy corn in place of the skulls on top of the posts:

And finally, here's a great finish by Melanie Jane (mj ...), including a super rad green cat:

We hope you enjoyed our September stitch-along. Stay tuned for more stitch-alongs here on Feeling Stitchy!

The Birds

Murderbird has posted some awesome bird themed embroideries in our Flickr Group. I love the use of the green patterned fabric as backdrop for this sweet little American Redstart.

And how about this fabulous Turkey Vulture? O.k. Mr. Vulture may not kill us with his cuteness but the fill stitching is to die for, right?  (And he probably wouldn't mind if you did!)

A word about advertising...

Hey guys, just a reminder that we don't allow advertising in our Embroidery group, or on our Facebook fanpage. If you add an item to our pool (or fanpage) with a link to your Etsy or online store, it will be removed. We may also remove items from our pool that look like advertising - if, for example, you are posting images of your entire store stock. If you're a pattern designer, feel free to post free patterns in our group, just not links to patterns for sale.

We love small businesses and frequently feature them here, but there are other ways of getting our attention - post a link to your Etsy or small business site in this thread. (You'll need to be logged in to Flickr and a member of our Embroidery group to see that). Or just post a few of your best (embroidered) items to our pool, and let us find you!

Thanks everybody! :)

The X-files: Restoring an older piece

Maybe you can help elliefunkhandmade? Over in the Flickr group, she's asking about restoring and cleaning older embroidery pieces:

[...] an advent calendar my grandmother made close to forty years ago - it is very special to me. I was wondering whether anyone had some ideas or tips about how best to wash it. It needs some minor repairs but the fabric has also stretched in places. I don't know for sure - but I think it is all cotton fabric (but I'm not sure of the stitched thread - I assume they are DMC)

Here and here are some photos of the calendar.

I'm sure others have the same question/problem, so if you have any suggestions for how to care for older pieces, please share them in the comments. :-)

Patterns: DIY stitchable phone case

Created by Wee Little Stitches

Following on from Floresita's stitchable phone cases post, how's this for a fun DIY version? Created by Wee Little Stitches (and featuring two of the heroes from their Justice League pattern), you can found out how on their blog, here.

So cute

Do not feed after midnight!, originally uploaded by loveandasandwich.

But don't feed after midnight or you know what will happen: cute goes bye-bye and you'll have to put him in the microwave! ;-)

Brilliant piece!

Flower Power

This is some serious gorgeous stitching by Anne (aka Dozydotes on Flickr)! An abundance of lovely satin stitches, French Knots, Lazy daisy stitches and a few other stitches as well. The flowers seem to be bursting from the hoop and I love that the stitching nearly covers all of the fabric. The autumnal colours Anne used for this piece are also spot on: rusty brown, yellow, orange and even a hint of pink. Do check out Anne's other 'Flower Power' pieces here.

Nyan Cat iPhone Case

Stitched by poppet with a camera

This makes me want an iPhone - because I'm just the sort of dork that wants a thing just so I can cross-stitch a cover for it. :) It also made me curious about the history of Nyan Cat.

Want stitchable covers? I hear you can find them here. And those free patterns they have to stitch? Also to die for:

Purl Bee also just posted a sweet free pattern for an iPhone cover:


Eeeeeep.

Patterns: Penguin & Fish

Blocks and embroidery by KCQuilts, embroidery patterns by Penguin & Fish

I love these bright and colourful blocks by KCQuilts and the embroidery in the middle of each is just perfect. The embroidery patterns are from Penguin & Fish, slightly adapted to go with the fabric patterns. You can read more about these blocks here.

September Stitch-along | Week 3

We hope you enjoyed Flor's post yesterday, and just in case you're not in the Halloween spirit yet, we're sharing some of the September stitch-along progress from the Embroidery Flickr pool!

Enjoy ...

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Love Marianne's coordinated fabric selection for her Halloween wall hanging:

by ~ maripen

A green ghost? Sure, why not?! : )

by Fiber Fairy

by dappleapple09

by AllThingsBelle

Blown away by this amazing fill stitch:

by Savage Pink

Here Comes Halloween!

Free pattern by Badbird, stitched by onetomatotwo

Looking at the pool and seeing all the entries for our September Stitchalong has really gotten me into the Halloween spirit. Also, this awesome cross stitch by Flossbox, of course. :)

Looking for something quick and fun and free to stitch (assuming you've already done our Stitchalong pattern by Cathy Gaubert, of course)?

Here's a few of my free faves:


Free pattern by Annie Oakleaves, stitched by yours truly


Free pattern by The The Treacys

Old is New again: Swedish Weaving

I do not pretend to know everything about embroidery or stitches. Actually I still have a lot to learn. The good thing about that is that I regularly stumble upon exciting things that have been around for ages but are new to me. Last week I found some great tutorials on Swedish Weaving on Collette's blog Serendipity Handmade (find the posts about it in the side bar of her blog). Swedish weaving is also know as Huck Stitching (and a bunch of other names) and was especially popular during the 1930's and 40's to embellish tea towels and aprons. Huck refers to one of the fabrics used for this technique and the 'weaving' bit becomes clear when you study how it's done.

The thread stays on top of the fabric so there is no thread visible on the back of your piece.

This sampler by Lynn (aka the Little Red Hen) shows a lovely colourful variety of patterns in Swedish Weaving. Of course you are not limited to tea towels and aprons. Personally I quite fancy the idea of an Ipod case embellished with Swedish Weaving! More info about the history of Swedish Weaving, what fabrics to use and techniques etc. can be found here.

I'm sure you are aware we have a fun embroidery contest going on at the moment called Covered in Stitches. There are quite a few fabulous entries in the Covered in Stitches Flickr group already but it's certainly not too late to join in at this point! Submissions are accepted until November 7th.

Texture and leaf

Fall Leaf Embroidery, originally uploaded by flossbox.

This is a lovely piece, isn't it? Perfect autumn colours, great texture and a lot of different stitches.

How many different stitches do you see?