Where's Summer?

I know so many people across the US and abroad are experiencing heatwaves. In my neck of the woods, we are cold! We haven't even had a summer yet. Instead of getting depressed over my lack of heat, I found this beautiful embroidery by Gracie's Garden and instantly felt the summer breeze sweeping across my face, I could smell the fresh grass and hear the birds singing. Thank you so much Gracie for bringing summer to me.

Another first

Premier essai de broderie, originally uploaded by chabronico.

Gosh, I do love discovering first attempts at embroidery.

Like this one from chabronico.

Isn't it beautiful? Read more about it here (in French).


If you too have recently taken your first stitchy steps, do share them in the Feeling Stitchy Flickr group! Tag your images with ' first stitches ' - so I can find 'em. :-)

Patterns: Needle Power

 

 Needle Power stitched by xperimentl - pattern by Urban Threads

At the risk of repeating myself, as I blogged about another Urban Threads pattern last week, I just had to blog about this one, as xperimentl as produced such a unique twist to this, with the great choice of colours and oooh, that lovely appliqué! You can find the pattern, called Craft Revolution, here. How many different ways could you imagine doing this pattern?

A boy's best friend...

Stitched by poppet with a camera

So many of you liked this on our FB page, I had to share it here, too. :) Awesome, huh?

This got me thinking about how you guys read Feeling Stitchy, so I added another little poll in the sidebar (thanks for answering our poll about Stitchalongs!) If you don't mind, please click through and answer: What's the main way you read Feeling Stitchy?

If you answer "other", please leave a comment on this post as to what "other" way you read us. :)

Beautiful Birds

Stitched by Geninne

Wow. Isn't this incredible? And, perfect inspiration for John's printed fabric stitchalong this month...

We don't expect you to painstakingly print your own fabric like Geninne did. She's an amazing artist we've featured before on Feeling Stitchy. But hey, we'd love to see it if you try it! :)

Can't wait to see what everyone stitches! :)

July Stitchalong - Week 4

FS July 2011 Stitchalong, gallery of most of the stitched gnomes...

From daisyeyes

Howdy everyone, this is the 'official' end of the July Stitchalong here on Feeling Stitchy - but feel free to carry on stitchin' your gnome army!

Unfortunately, I haven't got any updates on my own gnome - must do better!

Thank you all for playing this month and thank you to MimiLove for supplying the pattern! :-)

August Stitch-Along | Week 1

Welcome to the August stitch-along here on the Feeling Stitchy blog. Due in large part to my undying love of fabric, I've decided to take the stitch-along in a slightly different direction this month. Rather than selecting an embroidery pattern for us all to stitch together, I'd like to lead us in a month of embellishing patterned fabric with floss and stitches. It's a technique I first mentioned in this post from a few weeks back.

I've already selected my fabric -- a gorgeous print from Valori Wells' recent fabric line, Nest -- and rounded up some coordinating DMC floss colors. Well, I haven't exactly decided yet -- I'm still waffling between these two different color variants of the same print.

And when we're done, there are several fun things we can do with the finished project. Besides simply hanging it in a hoop (of course), we can turn our embellished fabric into pillows, mini quilts, quilt blocks ... really, whatever you can imagine!

So, are you in? For this first week, let's just focus on selecting a fabric and floss palette. Simply find a fabric that you love -- large scale prints are best, and a fat quarter should be plenty. I scanned some of my favorite shops and found a few other prints that I thought would be fun for stitching:

Prince Charming Honey Frog Prince, found at the Fat Quarter Shop

(I almost went with this one myself!)

Just Wing It Water Flower Garden, found at the Fat Quarter Shop

Melissa Averinos Dazzle, Jewell Teal, found at Fabricworm

Helen Dardik Too Muchery in Steel, found at Fabricworm

Valori Wells Wrenly Wren Gypsy, found at Pink Chalk Fabrics

Erin McMorris Summersault Hide and Seek Turquoise, found at Pink Chalk Fabrics

Anna Maria Horner Loulouthi Summer Totem Struedel, found at Pink Chalk Fabrics

Amy Butler Soul Blossoms Moss Sari Blooms, found at the Fat Quarter Shop

Summer House Bright Blue Audrey, found at the Fat Quarter Shop

I sure hope you'll stitch along with me, and I can't wait to see what you pick. To share your photos, just tag your stitching "AugustStitchalong" and add it to our pool. Happy stitching!

Patterns: Steampunk Santa

Steampunk Santa WIP - stitched by sereniticat

It's never too early to get ready for Christmas it seems (I have to admit my to stitch list for Christmas is beginning to nag at me). Sereniticat has made an amazingly admirable start with the Steampunk Santa pattern from Urban Threads. I just adore the detailing on this, the little gold beads for buttons, the different textural stitches and of course the fluffy beard! I can't wait to see the finished piece!

Dala Horse crafty fun!

Do you love that Swedish icon the wooden Dala horse? If you do - or know someone who does - you should join this craftalong which I'm co-hosting! You know, if you're not too busy with the stitchalong here on Flickr! Although, the Dala Horse Craftalong isn't just for stitching - make anything you fancy!

We started the Dala Horse Craftalong on Monday and it continues for a month! So you've got time to join in! You can make pretty much anything as long as it features a Dala horse or is inspired by it.

Some of us have already started projects and have listed suggestions for things to make, like a softie, an embroidery pattern etc. We're also lucky that one of the co-hosts is from Sweden and she recently visited the place where they make the actual wooden Dala horses!

Here are links to the first post about the craftalong by myself and each of my co-hosts:
iHanna, Carina's Craftblog (hey, that's meee!), Gingerbread Snowflakes and The Pickled Herring.

Do check it out and join in on the fun - there's a Flickr group you can join and share what you make!

Oh and if you do join along, do check out my blog post up there, it's got buttons in different sizes which you can put on your blogs etc. :-)

Air balloon...

Hot air balloon embroidered, originally uploaded by Memi The Rainbow.

Isn't this a delightful little stitchery?

And such a cute combination with the background.

Memi, who stitched this, is completely new to embroidery - not bad, right? :-)

July Stitchalong - Week 3

Hey guys, here's the week 3 update of the July Stitchalong. This is my progress. A bit of satin stitching going on there on his booties. Fancy! :-)

How about you? Are you doing any stitching along this month? Don't forget to use the tag JulyStitchalong when adding your photos to the Feeling Stitchy group.

Miss Pixie Crafts

Speaking of satin stitch! Take a look at this beauty (can gnomes be beauties?!) - nice satin trousers. And the flowers too! I love how this gnome had been completely filled in - that's such a great texture.

snifferooski

Talk about texture! The hat on this gnome is absolutely awesome! That swirly-ness is really great. Looks like coils of chain stitch...

jamiebarks

How cute is this guy?! I'm happy to see that I'm not the only one who can't commit to filling the gnome - that's a lot of work! Look closer at this gnome, notice that tassle on his hat? That's inspired! Absolutely love it. :-)

Right, that's it for this week - I reckon you could finish a gnome for next week.. Why not give it a go? :-)

Tell us what you think about stitchalongs on Feeling Stitchy

Week 3 of the July Stitchalong is a bit delayed (will post it tomorrow).

In the meantime, maybe you would let us know what you think of the stitchalongs we've been doing the past few months..?

You can do so in two ways:

1: Take the poll over in the sidebar (it's only about the frequency of the stitchalongs)
2: Leave a comment with your thoughts (let us know anything that comes to mind regarding the stitchalongs.)

You're absolutely welcome to do both. Thanks! :-)

Patterns: Closet Monsters

Here at Feeling Stitchy, we were very kindly given a copy of Closet Monsters: Stitch Creatures You'll Love from Clothing You Don't by John Murphy to review. Closet Monsters takes clothes destined for the bin and turns them into softies. There is some opportunity for embroidery, particularly freehand machine embroidery, as you personalise your monster.

There are thirteen different monsters made with shirts, jackets, trousers, jumpers, pyjamas, suits and dresses. Each monster in the book, to some degree, takes advantage of the particular design of, say the pyjamas or the dress, so unless you have that exact same pyjamas or dress, it would be difficult to exactly replicate the same monster, specially as there are no patterns in the book, however there are quite detailed instructions on how to cut out your softy pieces. There are also detailed general instructions at the beginning of the book, as well as good construction instructions for each monster. I would say, however, that this is not a book for a beginner softy maker, you'd need a bit of experience before tackling the designs in this book. I'd also recommend reading through the instructions several times before starting.

For me personally, I've made softies in the past, although I've only recently started making them without a pattern. I decided to tackle Maureen McDoover, which in the book is made out of a pair of cord trousers, but on raiding my wardrobe, all I could find was a pair of too small jeans.

However they were similar to cords in that the fabric is different colour on each side. However they looked more tailored than the cords in the book and I think this is possibly why my Maureen McDoover's nose ended pointing up, instead of down.

I did like the opportunity to add machine embroidery along the nose and on the chest though. I also personalised mine more by adding some of the labels I had cut out of my jeans.

However, I found the denim a little tricky to work with compared to the normal felt or cotton I make softies with, so I decided to make my monster footless. I also didn't add teeth because I did not have much of the white pocket lining of the jeans left and didn't want to 'cheat' by finding fabric elsewhere.

Overall, this is an interesting book for hardcore softy makers or those looking to make softies cheaply.

I tried to think of the most harmless thing

I tried to think of the most harmless thing, originally uploaded by poppet with a camera.

Geez, how awesome is this?

Really awesome! :-)

Tale As Old As Time

Okay, are you ready for the most awesome stitching ever? This piece by VanGo87 on Craftster is our featured project and interview of the month. I just love it! It is so clever! You can see in progress pictures here.

Tell us a little bit about the piece.
This little guy was made for my swap partner in the “Can’t Get Enough of Disney Swap”. While brainstorming and googling ideas on Beauty and the Beast craft projects, the idea struck and I was whisked away on designs on how to execute it properly on a low budget and physically work.
After a week of planning and about four days of construction (and of course trial and error) this little guy finally came together. There were times I wanted to throw him at the wall (like when I realized that I bought the wrong size clock parts or that the clock parts didn’t come with instructions) but I eventually made it work and I am happy to say my swap partner loved it so it was entirely worth all the hair pulling.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.
I have a BA honors in Film  and a complete geek. I live in Canada with my very large family and my even larger craft, PEZ and DVD collections. I recently turned twenty-four (not like my younger boyfriend will ever let me forget) and I’ve been crafting since I could remember thanks to my equally crafty mother, family and friends.

 Do you have any other pieces like this planned for the future-what is your next project?
I have a lot of ideas for future geeky projects – too much that I don’t know how to keep track of them! I’m working on making the Cogsworth Clock tutorial (however I’m thinking of snazzing it up with wood instead of cardboard), a collection of cross stitched “sh*t happens” hoops based on movies and video games, a cross stitch Doctor Who TARDIS clock, and a “Home is where the TARDIS is” cross stitch for my sister and her boyfriend’s new apartment.

What would you tell someone just getting started?
Patience. Have a lot of it. If something doesn’t work, learn from your mistakes and keep going. I have made so many craft related mistakes that I can’t even count on my fingers and toes anymore! Also, don’t be afraid to try something new or set a goal. I thank my swap partner for not giving me any boundaries and letting my head run wild with ideas. Surround yourself with people who encourage and inspire you, you’ll never know where that support and creativity can take you!

What/who inspires you.
Not to sound cliché, but everything and everyone. I tend to look around at what others have made and ideas tend to spring from that. As for specific people I would have to say my mother, sister and best friend.
My mom has always been a creative person but didn’t take the creative path when she was younger because it wasn’t seen as a good choice. Until this day she surprises me with her unique creativity and her ability never to give up.
My older sister is someone I always looked up to. Her artistic talents were far better than my own growing up and I always pushed myself to try and make something that would make her say “wow, make me one”, which recently has started happening so I know I have her respect as an artist.
As for my best friend, she has an amazing artistic work ethic that I would love to have. She knows what she wants and will keep trying until she gets it right. Without her support and encouragement, I don’t think I would have branched out artistically. Not to mention that they are all as geeky as I am so whenever I make something related to our favorite fandoms and they like it, it really inspires me to make more!