New Iron on Patterns are Here!

I'm thrilled that finally my new iron-on patterns have arrived! Together with my daughter Luna I assembled the patterns (transfer sheet(s), description sheet, postcard) last weekend and I have quite a few waiting to be send out to you. The pattern envelopes have a new distinctive design that reminds me of black board chalk drawings. :)

One of the new patterns is The Most Excellent Party Bear and it has some awesome new additions. When you buy the pattern you receive two pattern sheets: one with the Party Bear and one with 'special touches': several motifs to turn the Party Bear pattern into a DIY sampler for an anniversary or to welcome a new baby. There's a banner with 'Welcome' and a tag that you could add names to for example. You could combine them into one piece or make several smaller pieces to hang them nicely arranged on a wall.

Wave Goodbye.. is another pattern you may recognise from last year. It's a fresh, fun, summery design and comes with an extensive stitch and colour key.

Flower and Bird is a new design based on the Negative Space piece I made earlier this year. As it's perfect for shading it's included in my upcoming online Shading Class! All new iron-on patterns are also available in one Excellent New Pattern Deal which will save you almost 15%.

Simply Shading Online Embroidery Workshop!

Often when I post a (progress) photo of one of my embroideries online I get comments like 'I wish I could embroider like that'. That inspired me to start writing and preparing my new workshop Simply Shading. It's aimed at embroiderers (I think even adventurous new embroiderers could join) who want to try their hand at shading but need a little push in the right direction. :) You will learn how to choose colours and shades and use them effectively.

The workshop starts on the 18th of June and will end 4 weeks later. A kit with fabric, needles, floss holders and the Flower & Bird iron-on pattern (finished embroidery pictured above) are included but thread is not included. The lessons will be available as downloadable PDFs and there will be a student and teacher only forum for feedback and questions. And... as my former Furry Nice students know I'm always happy to answer any questions you have via e-mail or on Instagram.

Shading is really a lot of fun and not incredibly complicated but it takes time, practice and patience. I look forward to tell you all about it in the workshop!

You can sign up for the workshop now and if you use the code EARLYBIRDY before the 3rd of April, you will receive a 10% discount. Yay! Hope to see you many of you in the workshop!

Early Bird

 This is the piece I've been working on since January in preparation for the class later this year.  I like how it's turning out although it's taking me a little longer than I planned to because I'm writing down a lot of details. After I have finished this (and I'm guessing there's about 8-10 hours of stitching left) I really want to embroider another small furry creature! 

Inspirations: patterns in my neighbourhood

On my way to the bike repair shop (with a broken bike wheel in my hand) and back (without the broke bike wheel), I took some pictures of interesting patterns in my neighbourhood. Once you start looking, you see patterns and interesting details everywhere. Today I spotted lots of simple but stylish ornamental work in stone and metal.

And on my way back I found this object in a little shop.

It's a bird on a tree trunk (obviously) and at first I thought it was a tiny vase because it has a hole on top. But then I found out it had a hole in the bottom as well which makes it kind of useless as a vase. ;)  It now keeps my vintage porcelain owl (which is actually a perfume lamp) company.

Liberty Bird

Last week I wrote about my plans of stitching a Tiny Tufted Titmouse. Making these animal portraits is a bit like a treat to me, there's no pressure and no deadline and no writing down of colours and stitches and not much of a plan either...

Anyway,  I suddenly thought it might be fun to stitch it on a really pretty, flowery fabric. Lately I have only used cotton satin fabric for my tiny animal portraits. Cotton Satin is a medium weight fabric with a close weave and perfect for embroideries with lots of tiny stitches. Then I found this scrap of gorgeous Liberty Fabric in my stash which is really is not very suitable for my type of stitching at all. The fabric is quite thin and I can hardly see what I'm doing with that busy print but the embroidery is turning out rather charming so far. I really like how the bird seems to emerge from the flowers. Now I'm tempted to do more of these 'Liberty' birds after I have finished this one!

Tiny Bird Sketch

This morning I finished a project that had I had been working on since January. Well I finished the embroidery part of the project, not all of the 'what-stitch-goes-where-in-what -colour-writing-down' bit. So with that nearly done I feel it's legitimate to start thinking about my next Tiny Animal Portrait.

Quite a while ago I decided it would be a bird and I got some fabulous suggestions here on the blog as to what bird exactly it should be. I'm pretty sure I will start with this bird, the Tufted Titmouse. I made a quick sketch just now and I think he'll look fabulous in stitches!

There's a whale in the moon when it's clear...

...and a bird on the tide...

While I still spend many hours on the couch (thanks every one for the sweet well wishes and comments on my last post!) I pulled my Fish and Bird embroidery from my WIP basket. It's quite an experimental piece. And it still needs lots of fill stitches and obviously the bird needs a pair of legs as well!

I'm adding some darker shades now to the sea and sky to create a more 'dramatic' contrast because all the grey-ish and grey/green-ish tones made it look a bit bland. Also I don't want the whale to look 'furry' so I'm using subtle shade changes which will hopefully make it look a bit smoother.

The floss sorting is almost done (well the DMC anyway) and it turns out I actually don't have that big a stash of floss. I would really want to get my hands on some Cosmo/Lecien floss as well, it's supposed to be so good! I heard it's pretty expensive though but if anyone knows a good online source for it please let me know. :)

From song to pattern: Fish & Bird

Today I'm giving you a little peek in what I've been up to lately with my drawings. Recently I started to listen a lot to the cd Alice by Tom Waits. Which isn't based on books by Lewis Carroll by the way. The music was written for a play called Alice, the play is about the rather dubious relationship between Lewis Carroll and a girl named Alice. Anyway on that cd there is a heartbreaking song called Fish and Bird about a bird that falls in love with a whale. You must check out the lyrics here on Tom Wait's website, it's pure poetry.

First I made a little sketch and then made several versions based on the initial drawing. My favourite is the one pictured above, on which I used lots of tiny dots. I'm thinking of maybe releasing a version of this as a print. I've also made an embroidery pattern with the same theme (for me, not intended to release) but I've only just started it so there is not much to show yet.

Not totally unrelated (it has to do with the book Through the Looking glass) and quite amusing is an entry in the Wikipedia I stumbled upon about unbirthdays. Unbirthdays are all the days that are not your birthday. So I'm wishing  most of you a very very happy unbirthday today!