Embroideries I made this year

These are some of the embroideries I made in 2013. A lot of furry creatures and I don't think I'm ready to give up stitching those yet so expect some more in 2014. :) 

Hello sailor!

Isn't he a handsome sailor Bear? I spend quite a few hours stitching his fur this weekend and I think there is still a few hours of fur stitching ahead before I'm finished! I have never fur-stitched such a large animal before so I'm kind of intuitively stitching away. Making photos during the process helps me to decide if my intuition was right. I think I did ok. :) 

p.s. last call for my Blackfriday-Smallbusinesssaturday-Cybermonday SALE, it ends today!

More shading

I'm still happily experimenting with shading in my Rabbit embroidery. I think I wrote earlier that I'm not looking to stitch very realistic stuff, I just want to add some subtlety to the fill stitching and colouring in my embroideries. And that takes time. Time to learn and time to execute. It's really worth it though and fun too. So the flower may not perfect but that's ok because I learned lots from stitching it. :)

After I stitched the (rather large) flower I washed out all the old blue markings and made new drawings directly on the fabric. I'm rather pleased with the flowery additions. The rabbit is now called Lucky by the way, after my previous blog post (which was mainly about how lucky I felt with the swap goodies I received). I thought it was a cute name for a rabbit. 

Lucky

For some reason whenever I do a swap I am always incredibly lucky with my swap partner! This time I got these gorgeous goodies from Moira (I think, had a hard time deciphering the card haha) for the Fat Quarterly Retreat Name Tag Swap.

In less then two weeks time I will be traveling to London and it's making me a little nervous already. At least people will know who I am by this wonderful name tag. The zippered pouch bag (I really must learn how to sew zippers, they still scare me) is fantastic too. I love the fabric she used for it! I will take it with me to London to keep some of my sewing supplies in like my rotary cutter, thread and scissors. Moira also sent me a lovely assortment of scraps and those are more than welcome too.

For the peeps who are following the progress of my white rabbit embroidery: progress is slow but I thought I'd post a photo anyway!

I am adding a wave/cloud shape in the background in teal/blue/white shades. I still need to un pick the flower in the front. To give you an idea of the scale: I'm using a 6 inch hoop and the rabbit is about 3 inches high.

Furry update and a new quilt book!

I've been spending some quality time with my furry friend in the past few days, a couple of dozen minutes here and there...Somehow the photo makes him look much more textured than he really is. The 'real' rabbit looks much smoother and I must try and capture that in a photo for my next update! While I was stitching I kind of went back to my own 'crazy fur stitching' technique but it's looking pretty ok so far so that's fine. :) I think for a next project it would be better to get my colour pencils out before I start my embroidery and plan the shading a bit more thorough than I did with this piece.

I'm a little biased when it comes to all things Fat Quarterly, the e-zine about quilting. Katy of FQ has been an online buddy for years and years, every since I won a giveaway on her blog. (I still have the Cath Kidston Tesco Christmas shopping bag I won!) 'T was in the days that giveaways were more rare and (lucky for me) not many people entered either, haha. I think I first stumbled upon John of FQ when we were both contributing blocks for the Bushfire Quilt Project (also quite a few years ago now) and we exchanged embroideries in the Hoop Up Swap etc etc. Can't wait to meet both John and Katy (and a lot of other quilters too) on the Fat Quarterly Sewing Retreat in London early June! Anyway, naturally I just had to buy the new book they wrote with FQ colleagues Tacha Bruecher and Brioni Greenberg.

I'm having a great time browsing Shape Workshop for Quilters. I love that it's not only got great projects but a lot of individual blocks as well. Some blocks are basic, some are traditional with a modern twist, there is really something for every quilter in here. Beginners will find all the basic information about quilting in this book and easy blocks to start with and gain confidence in quilting. More advanced quilters will find  much inspiration in this book. Shape Workshop for Quilters is available here (and in many other places I'm sure..)

This reminds me that I must do a post about all the quilts I have in progress right now!