New Work

Working on a series in this style (or similar) with various subjects. These will all be put on sale in my shop over the next months. I've used many different stitches on this piece, which made it very enjoyable to make. I started out with a simple anchor shape and improvised, because that's how I like to work. :)  

Questions/offers/commissions? Please get in touch! nicole@followthewhitebunny.com 

A Bear & Fish update

I couldn't wait to start stitching the bear's kerchief! I think it came out pretty good, maybe a little too smooth? But I kind of like that too. A little while ago, and I'm not sure if I mentioned his name here before, I stumbled upon the work of Stephen Mackey. He makes dreamy, slightly odd paintings and drawings. Somehow I'd like to bring some of that dark, slightly threatening feeling his work has into this embroidery piece. I'm not sure if I'm brave enough to go all murky on the background though. I have also started to stitch  some Foxglove on the left. Beautiful plant but quite poisonous too...

So far I'm very happy with the cotton satin fabric I'm stitching on. I'm pretty sure it's all I will use from now on for these really time-consuming, detailed pieces.

This was (is) my original Bear & Fish pattern my piece is based on by the way. Still available in the original, simpler, version. :)

So unless something really exciting comes up, I think I will be back her on the blog after Christmas. I always like to do a small(ish) project over the Christmas period. Last year I made this and for this year I was contemplating stitching the cute polar bear that's on the current issue of our zine except that I forgot to buy the beads. Any suggestions for nice, easy cross stitch patterns are welcome! Which reminds me that you all should check out this special Wee Little Stitches pattern to help raise money for the Sandy Hook School Fund and NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness).

Hope you will all spend this Christmas the way you like best!

P.S. Don't forget to enter my 'Inspirations' magazine giveaway

Quick peek at new project

Here's a quick peek at a new shading project I'm about to start! Some will recognize the image as I have a similar pattern in my shop called 'Bear and Fish'. Not so much a favourite with the pattern buying public (although I always think extra fondly of the people who do purchase it) but I have a soft spot for this Bear. Story goes he's a lighthouse keeper on a tiny island off the coast of France...

Compared to the shading projects I did earlier this year (a Rabbit called Lucky and Boris E. Morley)  this one is rather big so that makes it a whole different kind of challenge to me. By sizing up I hope to get even more detail into the piece. I'm also using a different type of fabric now. Usually I embroider on quilter's cottons but I figured if I'm going to spend many hours on making something I'd better choose a slightly fancier type of fabric. It's called cotton satin fabric (medium) and I bought it online in a store called Mace & Nairn, a UK based Hand Embroidery Supply shop. The cotton satin fabric looks and feels really nice and it's definitely sturdier than quilter's cotton. Will keep you all up to date with the progress of this new project!

Craft-on-the-go: an invitation from the Queen

I started this embroidery while I was away. A perfect on-the-go project as it only requires one colour! I found the Alice in Wonderland pattern of the Queen's fish footman presenting an invitation (well it's not really a pattern it's a drawing) when I spotted Martha's great version of this image in redwork on Flickr. I wanted to do my version in one colour as well and after briefly contemplating using green (green work?) I settled for black. Now I'm halfway I'm not sure whether I like it in black as much as in red. I guess it needs to be finished first to know for sure! Find more of Martha's redwork Alice embroideries and a link to the images here.

P.S. in the background you can see a tiny bit of my scrap vomit quilt top. I finally finished it yesterday after one and a half year! More about that later this week. :)

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!