This week: silk thread and how I work

This week this seriously luscious floss arrived in the mail. It's Soie D'Alger Silk Embroidery Thread and at GBP 3.15 (over 5$) per 5 meter skein I only allowed myself to just buy a few skeins. If I really (like: realy, really) like this thread I can always gradually add more to my stash.  

The colours of this 7 stranded floss are beautiful (at least the ones I chose) and it's amazingly soft. I did a little try out yesterday on my long running 'Bear & Fish' project (the flower in the background) but thought my shading looked a bit chunky so I need to experiment a bit more to be able to give you the full verdict on this floss. I do think it is quite easy to work with it, comparable with regular six stranded embroidery thread. 

Earlier this week I was featured on the Mr. X. Stitch blog.  The lovely Olisa interviewed me about my inspirations and my design (and stitch) process. Hope you will enjoy reading about how I work. :) 

About a Little Blanket and a White Bunny

Some Pindsvins have all the luck. Having a whole tiny hand quilted blanket to themselves made with fabulous Liberty fabrics (and some other fabrics too)!

It was a fun little item to make and the only thing I'm not 100% happy with is the binding. It's a bit uneven and the mitered corners just didn't come out as nicely as I'd hoped. Oh well... it'll keep the Hedgehog warm this winter... It was also my first go at hand quilting and I quite enjoyed that actually!

In other news: Follow the White Bunny (that would be me) is featured on a wonderful blog today called Adventures & Tea Parties.

It's a fun interview (well I enjoyed reading it even when I already knew the answers!) with some peeks in my working space too. Joanna's blog is well worth a visit anyway; full of lovely crafty and other content and beautiful photos. So head over there and let her know the White Bunny sent you! :)

Meet the people behind the Pixel people: weelittlestitches Interview

Jacqueline & Christopher

Meet Jacqueline and Christopher, the husband and wife team behind weelittlestitches, a business that (in their own words) 'was born out of our love of needle and thread'. weelittlestitches makes contemporary cross stitch designs (both custom design and patterns) and is home of the famous Pixel people. Many of their (sometimes slightly geeky) patterns are inspired by film and tv personalities and pop culture from past and present. weelittlestitches are also the generous sponsor of a fabulous giveaway on this blog starting tomorrow! Woohoo!

Harry's friends (2)

Tell us a little bit about weelittlestitches

weelittlestitches is the cross-stitch design company/Etsy shop I started with my husband, Chris.  We've been open since 2010 and are lucky to have customers all over the world.  We're based in the Niagara region of Ontario, Canada - only about twenty kilometers from the famous Niagara Falls.  This past January I was able to quit my "real" job as a fashion merchandiser/window dresser to concentrate on weelittlestitches full-time - it's been wonderful!  When Chris isn't working at his job as a zookeeper he's helping to design new patterns and stitch finished pieces for sale.

work space

Where does your passion for cross stitch come from?

My Mom taught me to cross-stitch when I was just a little girl - only five or six.  I think it was her way to get me to sit still for more than three minutes at a time. I grew up in an "artsy" household - my Mom knits, cross-stitches, and sews beautifully, and my father paints watercolours and is a DIY handyman with a passion for fixing up houses, so I was raised around an endless supply of fabric, floss, paint, wool, and tools.  My parents always encouraged me and my four siblings to be as creative as possible.  I did move away from cross-stitch for a good long while as I was growing up - I taught myself to knit and crochet, I dabbled with scrapbooking and embroidery - but I ended up coming back to cross-stitch again in my 30s - a real "full circle" moment for me.  Shortly thereafter my husband expressed an interest in learning cross-stitch too - so I taught him and we've been stitching together ever since.  I love that cross-stitch transcends language - I could walk in to any craft store anywhere in the world and purchase a chart and be able to immediately sit down and stitch it - there really aren't too many other crafts that can say the same thing!  I adore the process of creating something wonderful with my hands.  I love seeing the picture grow stitch-by-stitch.  I have a terrible time just sitting still without anything to keep my fingers busy (I guess I haven't really changed from that five year-old little girl!) and cross-stitch fulfills that need for me.  I find it meditative and relaxing. I was worried after I opened my shop that I would grow to hate doing so much stitching every day (anywhere from 4-10 hours a day) but my wonderful customers fuel my passion for it and through their enthusiasm I just love it more and more!  

Classic Movie Monsters

How did you come up with the Pixel people idea?

When I began cross-stitching again a few years ago it was partly because I was finding all these cool video game sprite inspired patterns online - those retro 8-bit characters that we grew up with and still love - characters like Super Mario and Pokemon -  and they were the perfect things to stitch up as gifts for my brothers, friends, and husband - all of whom are notoriously difficult to buy for!  Pixel People grew out of those old 8-bit video game characters - I wanted to stitch more modern characters in a similar simple pixelated style, but there weren't any patterns like that available.  So I sat down with a piece of graph paper and some pencil crayons and sketched one out - I wanted my designs to be simple, with the fewest possible stitches representing each character - not out of any particular design aesthetic, but because I hate big, complicated patterns.  I was always really great at starting new projects, but terrible at finishing them - so when I began to design I wanted my patterns to be as pared down and simplistic as possible.  The Pixel People represent that simplistic style to me - they're really very little more than basic stick people.

Initially when I began designing the Pixel People patterns I had no plans to sell them or base an entire business around them.  I was designing patterns for tv shows, comic books, and movies that I liked so that I could stitch them for my friends and family!  It was then that I began designing Pixel People patterns of my family and friends too, as gifts.  The decision to open a shop and offer those patterns to other stitchers actually came much later.

Describe your patterns/style in 5 words

Simple. Quirky. Easy. Fun. Wait... that's only 4.... um... Geeky!

What would you like to say to people who are afraid of trying cross stitch?

Don't be!  Compared to the supplies needed for most crafts (like knitting, quilting, or scrapbooking) cross-stitch supplies are cheap.  It takes a very small investment to get started and there are lots of simple patterns you can stitch (like ours) that don't require hundreds of hours of your time.  The beautiful thing about cross-stitch is that it's really just one stitch to learn!  There are thousands of really cool patterns out there and they are all based around one simple stitch.  My best advice to someone who is a little hesitant to learn is to ask around amongst your friends and family - I bet you know someone who knows how to cross-stitch and they can teach you in less than hour.  After all, if I could learn at five years old, anyone can.

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Thank you so much for this interview Jacqueline (& Christopher too)! Tomorrow I'll be hosting a giveaway in cooperation with WeeLittleStitches. Be sure to check back because we have put together an awesome set of three patterns for one lucky winner! 

Meet Embroidery Mystery Writer Amanda Lee & 2nd Giveaway!

Just a couple of weeks ago I wrote about how I had stumbled upon the book 'The Quick and the Thread' (via Feeling Stitchy) an Embroidery Mystery written by Amanda Lee. Well... a couple of comments, tweets and mails later Amanda, whose real name is Gayle Trent, kindly agreed to do an interview on this blog & sent me a signed copy of her book to give away to one of you! Details later in this post. First lets get to know Gayle a bit better. So get yourself a cup of tea (or coffee) and read all about cozy murders and whether Gayle is able to answer Embroidery Geeky questions as well.;)

For the readers who don't know you, could you describe in a nutshell who you are and what you do?
My real name is Gayle Trent. I write cozy mysteries under that name and under the pen name Amanda Lee. The mystery series I write under the name Gayle Trent has a heroine who is a cake decorator, and the series I write as Amanda Lee features an embroidery shop owner.

Can you tell us a bit about your latest book 'The Quick and the Thread'?
Marcy has just opened up her shop on the Oregon Coast. Things are off to a great start, and her best friends- who own a coffee shop, cater a grand opening party for her. The next day, Marcy and her Irish wolfhound Angus find the shop's former tenant dead in her storeroom. Marcy has to figure out who killed the man to clear her name and to avoid becoming the next victim.

I was pretty amazed to find out there was a whole sub genre of 'crafty mysteries' out there like Knitting, Quilting and Beading mysteries. Why did you specifically choose embroidery for your cozy mysteries?
Actually, my agent asked if I'd be interested in penning an embroidery mystery, and I jumped at the chance to reacquaint myself with needlework. "Research" is the perfect excuse to while away the day doing embroidery!


You call yourself a 'cozy mystery writer', what exactly makes your mysteries cozy?
Cozy mysteries are kind of a gentler mystery. The murder happens "off screen" rather than the reader experiencing it in gory detail, and there isn't any graphic language, violence or sex in a cozy mystery.

Do you have any idea what kind of people read your Embroidery Mystery Books? 
 I think the people who read my books are kind of like me. They enjoy a good puzzle with their novel, and the like to learn something or get a bonus with the book. For example, readers of The Quick and the Thread can go to my website and get cross-stitch patterns that correlate to the book. In the book Marcy made a tote bag featuring the head of her dog. I had an artist render a sketch of Angus' head, and then I used a program to turn the drawing into a cross-stitch pattern. If you'd like to check out the patterns, you can find them here. To me the embroidery projects on the site seem to be a little hard, so I'm working on making them easier in the future. I've prepared a cross-stitch sampler similar to the one central to the plot in 'Stitch me Deadly' , and I'll be putting that on the site in late January or early February to coincide with the book's release. 

Do you have a certain person or type of person in mind when you are writing?
I try to keep Marcy in mind. I sometimes veer away from her, and  I have to remember who SHE is and what she would do in a certain situation. Sometimes it's hard to make things work out becaus I have to get the character from Point A to Point B in order to move the story along; but if doing so makes Marcy look like an idiot, I have to go back and rethink things. :)

Any type of embroidery that you particularly like doing?
I enjoy cross-stitch, but I've recently discovered red work, black work and ribbon embroidery. I also enjoy needlepoint and candlewicking.

What's in your hoop right now?
Right now, I'm trying to finish the companion to this pillowcase (see photo above). After I'm finished with that pillow case I want to make another set with your Princess and the Pea and Bear & Fish patterns. I'm hoping to get at least one of them done before Christmas so I can share a picture on my blog and give the readers a link to your site. Before you wrote to me, I didn't know about your site and your gorgeous patterns. You need more publicity! :) (*blushes* Thank you Gayle! -N.)


There's one other project I'd like to show. I'm really proud of it. I did this angel (see photo below) last year, and I was really pleased with how she turned out. 

Just a fun question to test how much of an Embroidery Geek you really are! If  I say 321, 310 and B 5200 would you know what I'm talking about? 
I'd say they're floss colors, but I"m not sure. I'd think the 321 and 310 are DMC colors, but I'm not certain about the B 5200. Am I right? (Yep, absolutely right! These are the no's of resp. red, black and white floss-N.) 


Would Marcy have Follow the White Bunny patterns in her shop?
Of course! In fact I want to feature Follow the White Bunny in an upcoming Sew Deadly newsletter.


Anything else you'd like to share?
I'd just like to thank you for letting me be a part of your blog. Oh, one other thing! I almost forgot- please check out my blog and see if you might like to enter the contest currently up at the site. (scroll down a bit to the November contest post). If you'd like to enter, please sign up for my newsletter adn then send an email to gayle[at]gayletrent.com once per day with 'November Contest' in the subject line to enter. The contest ends November 30. I'll have www.random.org 's number generator pick a number from the entries on December 1 and announce the winner in a newsletter e-mail. There's lots of good stuff in the prize pack; so if you enter, Good Luck!


And I hope that whatever holidays you celebrate-Thanksgiving, Christmas, Kwanza, Hanukah, New Year's Day- that you are blessed with love, health and happiness.

Wishing you happy holidays too Gayle and thank you for patiently answering all of my questions!

I hope this interview has got you in the mood for reading some cozy (and everyone likes cozy, right?) embroidery mysteries! If you'd like to win a signed copy of Gayle's (or rather Amanda Lee's) latest book 'the Quick and the Thread'  leave a comment on this post before 12 PM Amsterdam time, Tuesday the 16th of November. In the last giveaway I had my AM's and PM"s mixed up but  I really mean noon. I'm not going to pick a winner at midnight! Anyway....I will add a special 'Dutch Treat' to the prize so you can nibble on something while you are reading. Winner will be announced on the blog shortly after. Good luck everyone!

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