Don't read any further if you are on a Fabric Diet!

 

  

I have way too much fabric for the amount of sewing I do and I told myself not to buy any more until I finished a few projects with the fabric I already have. But yesterday evening I came across these wonderful fabrics by Cloud9 and I literally got water in my mouth just looking at the pictures. This line of fabric is called My Happy Garden and consists of 8 beautiful coordinating fabrics. It will be available this fall in various shops and the best thing is that all the fabrics are manufactured in and eco-responsible way! Which makes it perfectly o.k. to forget your Fabric diet and buy some of these lovelies! :D

p.s. thank you for all the entries to the "Name that Pattern' contest (see post below) I will leave the comments open for a bit longer but I've seen some nice ones already!

Name that Pattern!

 

I'm now embroidering the whole design of the Under the Sea pattern I made earlier this year (instead of individual creatures). Someone pointed out to me last week that the name of this pattern was already in use for another (totally different but also lovely) pattern from Sublime Stitching. I already knew that (because I own the said pattern) but couldn't think of a better name. If you do know a better name leave your name suggestion in the comments. I will pick the one I like best later this week and that person will receive the Under the Sea pattern (my version that is)!

The Library or a post about books

 

For all "knitterly and crafty types who read, or pretend to read, or take pictures of people reading things they might like to read (...)" JulieFrick started a Flickr group called The Library (Knitterly and Crafty Types). Go ahead a have look they aren't as rare as you may think!

I love reading books, but also love doing a lot of other things so I do most of my reading around bedtime, then I read until I almost fall asleep. That, and when I have to wait because I don't like wasting time. Recently Bookwormbethie and I recommended some books to each other which was such a good experience. Can't go wrong with some one named Bookworm of course! ;) Just this week I added my Shelfari bookshelf to this blog (look left and scroll down). There are only a few of the books I have read there, but if you're interested take a look!

Recently I added The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey by Trenton Lee Stewart and The Passion of the Hausfrau: Motherhood, Illuminated by Nicole Chaison to my Amazon wish list. I thought City of Saints and Madmen by JefvanderMeer looked interesting too. And there are few crafty books too like Bend the Rules Fabric by Amy Karol. I was wondering if any of you have read these and would recommend them (or not...). And what's on your book wish list?

Wow!

Lower mattresses,
originally uploaded by sew'nquilt.

Ann Mary Charles posted this photo of her amazing version of the Princess and the Pea pattern. Click on the picture to see the original photo that was posted (along with two others of the same embroidery) in the Follow the White Bunny Embroidery Group.Check out her description of all the different stitches she used and be inspired! The only thing missing here is a Pea :D

Shop news: free pattern with your purchase!

Yay! The next couple of weeks (or maybe a bit longer) you get this cute 'bear & girl decorating a tree' pattern when you purchase patterns in my shop.

Inside my sketchbook

I thought it would be nice to give you another peek inside my sketchbook. A wintery scene this time!

 Totally unrelated but worth a mention is this give away on Muriels blog celebrating 100 blog posts. Among the goodies is a very cute handmade bag and (almost equally important) some delicious Dutch Stroopwaffles! My 100 th blog post is also getting near but as I just had a giveaway I think I will wait for another opportunity to host  a giveaway. I'll be sure to include some Stroopwaffles though!

Sunday stash # 14 Go Green!

These fabrics are from the 'Green' section of my stash (which is roughly organised by colour). From left to right(with their non official names): checked fabric bought on the local weekly market in Rotterdam, Joel Dewberry Wood grain fabric, Heather Ross fabric with horses (forgot the name), Paisley and Apple fabric is by Sandi Henderson, Unknown fabric received in a swap, 30's star repro print, 2 fabrics by Denyse Schmidt (Katie Jump Rope), another 30's repro print, Unknown received in swap (but I think it was a Moda fabric), and yet another 2 30's repro prints.

The next generation: embroidery work in progress

It was bound to happen after seeing their mother embroidering like a maniac in almost every single free moment she has. Both Luna and Zoe wanted to embroider. I already did some with Zoe during our stay in France but now Luna, who is only 4, wanted to do 'real' embroidery too. I thought the step from lacing cards to real embroidery with a real needle seemed a bit big but it went so well! Obviously I chose a needle that was not too sharp, yet sharp enough to go through the fabric easily. From my pattern stash I chose some simple Sublime Stitching images which I thought would appeal to them. The top one is made by Luna and the bottom one by Zoe.

Shop update: Alphabet Tree Girl

Just updated the shop with this cute new pattern! It features a girl reading a book in a tree with an alphabet tree trunk. I particularly enjoyed embroidering the leafs and the striped leggings (which she doesn't wear on the pattern by the way, I made those up when I was stitching the pattern). I'm not a very precise stitcher so my version is a bit wonky in places. I can't wait to see how other (neater?) stitchers will interpret my Alphabet Tree Girl. On Flickr Linda (aka Green Light GO!) asked if there also was a boy pattern available. Well there isn't but I thought it was such a great idea that I'm going to give it a try!

Nice clicks

I thought I'd share some nice inspirational websites with you that I like to visit sometimes and that you may not know yet. I'm not very quick to pick up on trends and things so this all may be old news to you. Anyway here goes...

Print and Pattern is a fresh looking blog about well ehm...prints and patterns. On all kinds of stuff (stationary, fabric you name it). Today I spotted these on Print and Pattern, if you like doing your dishes in a fair, ethical, organic yet stylish way! :)

Design Sponge is kind of hard to describe, there are posts about thrift finds, new products and some neat city design guides.

Blue berry Park is not a blog but a lovely online shop with mouth watering stuff! I especially love the poster/prints, like this Map of Paris.

Happy clicking!

Girl in Tree

I wanted to wait until I had finished the test embroidery but the light was so perfect to make a picture that I couldn't resist posting a little sneak peek of one of my new patterns! It probably would have been finished if I had not tried out 3 different stitches for the tree. I was not completely happy with the stem stitch, the back stitch looked horrible and now I'm fairly happy with the split stitch!

AlpinewinterySwissHeidilogcabincozy or what I did last week (2)

So during my stay in France I embroidered a bit. The Princess got a couple of new mattresses (yay!), I finished my Sublime Stitching Stag and I'm almost finished with my Bird from the vintage aunt Martha pattern. It would have been finished if I had not started to embroider it's head and wings blue, which I then un-picked and re-stitched in brown. Much better I think! The Stag and Bird will be my fall/winter set of pillows for the couch. I think they will look so AlpinewinterySwissHeidilogcabincozy in combination with the green checked fabric in the back!

What I did last week....

I spend a lovely week in the Bourgogne (Burgundy) area in France. Did lots of embroidery (which I will share with you in the next couple of days), made quite a few sketches for various projects and managed to read most of Steven Millhauser's Barnum Museum. We also did lots of cardgames, the kids had fun in the little pool we brought along and me+ husband enjoyed some late night bat-watching and an awesome starry night, which we don't get to see often living in or near large cities.

We didn't visit many exciting places (because of warm+kids+lazy) and a visit to one of the large French supermarkets is exciting enough for me, I love the endless choice of desserts. :D
Anyway, we did visit the medieval village of Flavigny sur Ozerai. The brochure said that most of the movie Chocolat was filmed here and I really enjoyed that movie a couple of years ago with the pretty french village scenes and of course Johnny Depp. Well I was a little disappointed when we actually got there, it was a sleepy little village and it looked nothing like the film. I would have thought there would at least be a shop with some awesome magical chocolates but no... there was a little shop that sold lovely Anise candy which I can heartily recommend! The photo shows some stone steps in Flavigny which I found quite charming (and thought I might use for a drawing some day...)

Long and Short

If you are interested in learning the Long and Short stitch and shading as well you can Stitch along on Mary Corbet's Needle'nThread website. There is even a Long and Short stitch Flickr group with some lovely examples!

I'm a big fan of filling stitches and the Long and Short stitch in particular. Which reminds me to find my Princess and the Pea embroidery, which has lots of (wonky) long and short stitches and finish it soon!

Guinea Pig found!

Thank you all so much for wanting to volunteer on the embroidery pattern test drive! JulieFrick (check out her photos they are awesome) will give it a try later this month.

Looking for an embroidery guinea pig!

Well not one like this little guy in the photo, he is ours, his name is Pippin and he doesn't embroider. And it's not about a pattern of a guinea pig either, which is what a lot of people thought when I posted this in the Follow the White Bunny Flickr group. I'm looking for someone who wants to test-drive a new Alice in Wonderland pattern later this month. Please comment in the Flickr group if you are interested. You may wonder why I don't try it out myself. First of all I've got many things going on and if I felt like I have to embroider, it would almost feel like work and the whole embroidery-experience would not be so relaxing anymore. The other thing is that often I've been drawing and re-drawing a pattern many times so I appreciate someone else taking a look at it and trying it out. Oh and please don't be sad if I don't pick you now, I've got heaps of ideas for upcoming patterns so new guinea pigs are needed in the future!

More woodgrain embroideries....

I enjoyed embroidering my White Rabbit on the luscious Joel Dewberry Yellow Woodgrain fabric so much that I could not resist using some of the equally lovely green Woodgrain fabric for these two larger images. I'm planning to make matching pillows for the couch with them. On the left is the image of a bird that I transferred from a vintage pattern (the same one that was in my last giveaway it still transfers quite well) The other one is a deer from Sublime Stitching.

Sorry about the awful picture by the way. Somehow a non embroidered transfer on woodgrain fabric + my floor don't work well together in pictures.

From saturday on my Etsy shop will be closed for a bit so if you were planning to buy or you think you might possibly be in urgent need of an embroidery pattern in the next 10 days head over to the shop now!

Sunday stash # 13 Rick Rack

Here are some of my vintage rick rack trims. I bought most of them on Ebay and I actually prefer these vintage trims to modern ones. They come in the most amazing colours like Chartreuse (my favourite colour), or Copenhagen Blue. And usually they are 100 % cotton too!

Who are You?

Actually this Caterpillar is a rather annoying character when you read the book. He asks Alice the same question over and over again....But the sketch turned out rather nice so I thought it would make a nice embroidery pattern too. :) I had to look up what a Hookah was though... Anyway this is the sneak peek I promised yesterday!

Thank you all for your nice comments about the dress and I'm glad I'm not the only one who is so excited about the upcoming Alice movie!