Bear on Tee

I had the pattern (one of my new upcoming patterns) near my ironing board and Luna's white t-shirt as well and this morning I could not resist to combine the two. Luna especially loves the fluffy fringe on the Bear's scarf!

The shop will be closed from tomorrow on for the next two weeks so if you think you need a pattern really badly please purchase within the next 24 hours!

Stuff you need when you start embroidering...

This was part of a series I wrote earlier this year for the Crafty Bird blog. Some small adjustments have been made. Hope it's helpful for all embroidery newbies and aspiring embroiderers who are reading this blog!

I started to embroider a couple of years ago but I still feel very much like an embroidery newbie. There are many different types of embroidery (blackwork, redwork, crewel to name a few) and many stitches to learn. So much so that it may all seem a bit overwhelming for the aspiring embroiderer. So let me take you by the hand and get you started on this wonderful craft! I will just explain it to you as if you were sitting next to me on the couch. It will be by no means extensive or complete, just enough friendly advice to help you on your way!

Before you start on your new favourite craft you will need a couple of basic embroidery supplies: a hoop, some embroidery needles, fabric, floss and embroidery scissors are handy to have as well.

I would recommend you buy a hoop. You can start with a rather in expensive wooden or plastic hoop. A 5 or 6 inch hoop will work fine for most embroidery designs.

Secondly you will need fabric. Cotton or linen are both good choices to start with. I often use old sheets or quilters cotton for my embroideries. And recently I have been using a lot of linen. A lightly patterned fabric (like the pink woodgrain in the photo) can be really fun to embroider on as well. Denim or t-shirt like fabrics (onesies) can be quite difficult to embroider on so it's probably better to wait until you are a little more experienced!

Then there is the needle. You will need a needle that is quite sharp, not too large but with a big enough eye so you can thread it easily. A needle that is too blunt or big will leave holes in you fabric. An eye that is too small for the number of strands you use will damage your floss. Buy a pack with various sizes embroidery needles and try and see what works best for you. I'm quite fond of  this Needle Pebble! Check out this article if your want to know more about embroidery needles.

Of course you will need embroidery floss. Dmc and Anchor are two well known quality floss brands and widely available. But which type of floss to choose? In the craft store you will probably find different flosses:linen, metallic, rayon or mouline (which is the same as 6 stranded cotton)  I would recommend starting with mouline as it's one of the easier flosses to work with and it's available in a wide variety of colours. The effect of metallic floss is without a doubt very desirable but it's hard to work with (I have it in my stash but avoid working with it!) so I would certainly not start with that on one of your first projects. Besides craft stores it can be worth while to look for floss on Ebay for example or maybe if you are lucky you can pick up some in yard sales or in thrift stores.

Embroidery scissors are every pleasant to have on hand too. They also come in a nice colours (pink!) and shapes (bird!)

Next time I'll discus some of the most common types of pattern (iron on and pdf) and how to transfer them to your fabric.

Happy Stitching!

This is not my bed.....

it's Casey's and she has done a fabulous job stitching my Forty Winks Fox Pattern! Look how neat it looks embroidered on a pillowcase with that great quilt and those lovely cushions. It's hard to believe that Casey has only been embroidering for a couple of months! Thank you for sharing this photo with me Casey. :)

 It's still very summer-y here in the Netherlands. Yesterday we had a lovely picnic in the Park  The kids took pictures of the 'Euromast', a local place of interest from which you can see the city and it's surroundings. And I took a picture of the kids

And of my leg. :)

And after wards I made some yummy Hummus from my new Donna Hay cookbook. I added more tahini, olive oil and lemon juice to the recipe though.

So.... in a couple of days time I will be going on a bloggy break. Hope to 'see' you all back in a couple of weeks!

Sunday Stash#33 Summer in the City

Georgia sent me this lovely charm pack of Urban Chik's Summer in the City many moons ago. I was saving it for a special project which somehow has not come along...yet. But while I was browsing through my stash the other day it occurred to me that if I wanted to make a quilt with this charm pack I'd better buy some additional fat quarters. So I checked Etsy and Ebay but there isn't much Summer in the City around anymore! And the fabric that is for sale, sells for crazy prices. So I tried to find some matching fabrics in my stash et voila:

It think they match the colours of Summer in the City quite well, as for the prints ehm... maybe not so much. Maybe I should continue my search for more (affordable) Summer in the City fabric!

Re-vamp of a Cardigan

I wasn't planning on doing this today but this afternoon I decided to give this rather Sad and Boring Cardigan a re-vamp. For my Friday contribution to the Feeling Stitchy blog I started to write a post about Bullion Knots. I felt inspired to try the stitch again myself and I thought the Sad and Boring Cardigan would be a good candidate for the job. I know the little Bullion Knot Rose (with a French Knot in the centre and Lazy Daisy stitches around) looks a bit tiny and lonely at the moment but I'm rather pleased with it so far! I'm thinking of adding some Edelweiss to the cardigan as well to go with my Swiss themed Edelweiss Skirt. :)  If you haven't mastered the Bullion Knot yet, go and check out this video tutorial by Mary Corbet.

New stitches on patterned fabric

I have been trying a new squiggly stitch in a checkered pattern and I'm very happy with the results so far. It's loosely inspired by patterns on Formica Kitchen Sets from the Fifties. Well I think it is anyway but I can't actually find an example on the internet with a similar pattern on it. The fabric is great as well, it's a linen/cotton blend with a soft blue gingham print on. This try out is part of the patterns that are to be released later. I'm going to stitch them over the next few weeks. That, and the Cross Stitch Patterns I bought at What Delilah Did. Very excited about those as well. I would love to create a wall in my living room dedicated to embroidery and with different styles and subjects, pretty much like this one!

A little birdie told me.... it's Follow the White Bunny Summer Sale!

Click on the photo to read the Sale details

It has been so very hot here, I can't imagine it will get any more summer-y than this! Paddling pool for the kids in the garden, barbeques, drinking iced tea and iced coffee, slowly solving giant sudoku puzzles, reading a bit, embroidering a bit and generally being quite unproductive. Anyway, it seemed like the perfect time for a Follow the White Bunny Summer Sale! So head over to the shop and get your favourite pattern now. It's 20% off all individual patterns until the 17th of July! Mention 'Followbunny' in the comments to seller and the discount will be refunded to you via Paypal. :)

In about two weeks time the shop will close for a couple of weeks. While I love all my patterns dearly, some of them, will not return. Or maybe some will but a little different. I'm not sure yet. During these lazy summer weeks I will post a few newbie embroidery tutorials on thiis blog. I wrote these earlier this year on the Crafty Bird blog but I thought they deserved a second round!

Embroidery Experiments

Wow. I have been rather absent from my blog this week! It has been busy with the kids last days of school before the summer vacation, workmen in the house doing stuff and making a mess and meetings with friends visiting from Kuala Lumpur and Japan!

And I have also been doing some doodling and sketching for a couple of patterns I want to release this fall. This is a detail of one of the sketches.. My husband couldn't see what it was supposed to be, but maybe you can see what it is? I'm not sure if it will work out so I'm going to give it a try later today. If it does work out you will see it back later this year!

I would like to thank everyone who gave me sewing machine advice here on the blog and also many thanks to the nice ladies who shared their cross stitch knowledge with me in the Follow the White Bunny group on Facebook! x