A Sale and a finished Tooth Fairy Bag

Detail from Princess and the Pea embroidery (my version)

I'll be taking a short break from blogging while the kids are on Spring Break (and it really does feel like Spring here at the moment!) but will return in a week or so.  My Etsy shop will also be closed during that time but you *can* always go visit my Follow the White Bunny Shop to buy patterns. Even better, if you use code SPRINGBUNNY on check out  you will get a 20% discount on your order! (offer starts now and ends 4th of March)  Note that his code is not valid in the Etsy shop, only in the Follow the White Shop.

And here is the finished Tooth Fairy Bag. We finished it just in time as Luna lost her first milk tooth yesterday while chewing on some licorice! :)

And this is the back of the Tooth Fairy Bag.

Hope to 'see' you all back really soon!

Toof

As Luna is about to lose her first milk tooth, we started a project together to make a small Tooth Fairy bag. I cut the fabrics, Luna (with a little guidance) does the sewing on her mini Janome.  I told Luna she could rummage through my scrap baskets and stash with smaller pieces to select fabrics for the bag. She loves novelty fabrics and bright prints and put together an interesting set of fabrics. :)  I cut a 'tooth' from white felt and in a later stage I will  embroider some eyes and a mouth on it so it will look a little like the lovely Ickle & Lardee, stars of the wonderful My Milk Toof blog.

Said one dinosaur to the other...

This is the embroidery I made for the Phat Quarter Embroidery Swap on Flickr. The theme was 'It's not the end of the world' and I almost immediately thought of stitching these dinosaurs having a casual conversation. The idea (and conversation) is based on a Dutch magazine ad from about 20 years ago to promote milk. I couldn't find the original ad (I thought you could find about anything on internet but apparently not 20 year old milk advertisements...) so I created my own version. I traced the T rex from a kids book I found online and I made his munching pal up.

The stitching is far from perfect, although I'm quite pleased with the shading on both reptiles. My swap partner Freddy listed blue as her favourite colour so that gave me the idea to almost exclusively use blue shades, I used about 6 different shades for this embroidery. The meteorite has a little bit of glow-in-the-dark thread. Not the easiest thread to embroider with but I got reasonably ok results with the smaller stitches.

I also have received my swap piece from Kristen earlier this week:

I must admit that I was very thrilled when I found out that Kristen was going to make something for me. According to Kristen this is a quote from a Led Zeppelin song.  It's an awesome piece and I love it a lot. I have a soft spot for music related embroideries. Previously I received embroidered quotes from a Smiths song and bought a stitched portrait of Tom Waits and a quote from one of his songs... Next addition to my collection has to be something Foo Fighters related but I guess I will need to embroider it myself, unless there are any volunteers?!?

Through the keyhole...peek in my 'studio'

...well not literally 'through the keyhole' because there isn't even a door on the spot where the photo is taken (on top of the stairs) but a peek into my 'new' studio/craft room anyway. The make-over of my craft room is nearly finished, the wall on the right will get a lovely warm red cherry blossom patterned wall paper....eventually... and I definitely need 'something' on the wall above my sewing table! The fabric cupboard needs some serious sorting and the scrap baskets (beneath the sewing table) are overflowing. The inspiration shelfs on the other hand (on the left) are still quite empty...But all in all I'm very happy with the alterations so far. I love my new white laminate floor and the extra table (for drawing and writing) was much needed. What I'm not showing is the (overflowing) 'to iron' basket and all the tools my husband conveniently left in the room 'because it's not quite finished yet' ;)

Small heirlooms

This is an hand embroidered card my grandmother sent to my grandfather a long, long time ago, probably in the 1930's.  I'm assuming this took many hours to stitch and I'm delighted that it was kept safe for all those years and eventually ended up at my place. I have another card, also sent by grandmother to my grandfather and while it's not embroidered I thought it would be nice to share, with Valentines day just around the corner...

My grandfather was in the Dutch Indies at the time (now Indonesia) and my grandmother in the Netherlands, hence the telecommunication reference on the postcard. Apparently the guy in the picture is sending out an S.O.S.  :) 

Take-away project

I'm going on a little trip soon (well not very soon but pretty soon) and I thought I'd take along something fun to stitch: a lovely design called 'Whistle while you work' from the September 2011 issue of Cross Stitcher Magazine.  I ordered a downloadable version of it as I only found out about this pattern months after it was released. This is how it looks half-finished, cute pattern right? I didn't want to think to much about it so I just ordered the floss colours that were mentioned in the pattern. Not a colour palette I usually work with but it looked nice in the example I saw. I also bought 25 count even weave fabric and the 14 count linen aida pictured above. The 25 count even weave intimidates me a tiny bit so I will probably go for the 14 count aida.

Just in case you missed it. I posted a fun 'how to' on the &Stitches blog about the Open Wave stitch yesterday. I'm experimenting with it even more today but it's at that stage that it could turn out rather fabulous or it could go horribly wrong. If it turns out ok I will show you of course... :)

Bringing life to an almost monochrome embroidery...the Doubtful Guest

I know this is not strictly a monochrome piece, but the scarf just needed some colour right? Nearly done now with this embroidery, I just need to find the red/pink colour of the Doubtful Guest's scarf again in one of my not so tidy floss boxes/ziplock bags! I'm glad I have now put this piece in a smaller hoop because the little guy looked a bit lost in the larger hoop he was in. I like the effect that the use of different numbers of thread (1-3 strands of floss) different stitches (back stitch, my notorious 'crazy' fur stitch, stem stitch and satin stitch) and the direction of the stitch, have on the image. I have learned now that even with only colour you are able to bring an embroidery to life. And trust me it looks much 'livelier' in real life than on this photo! Besides the strands, stitches and stitch direction I will add another 'lively' aspect to the embroidery. Like in my first Edward Gorey/Doubtful Guest Embroidery I will make the scarf's fringe 3D. :)