Gorey Stitch A Long starting soon!

Just a little reminder that on the first day of the new year the Edward Gorey Stitch A Long that I'm hosting together with Bridgeen begins! I'm still not 100% sure which illustration I'm going to be embroidering this time. I really like this one of the roller skating Doubtful Guest but have only found one, not very clear image of it on the internet. This cat & book one would be pretty sweet too. Anyway, if you want to join in the fun: we have a Flickr Group dedicated to this SAL here.  You have three months to finish so that's totally do-able right? And if Gorey is not your thing, you might want to stitch a long next time when we focus on Tim Burton's art and characters!

A stitch a long and an Inspirations giveaway too

A little while ago Australian publisher Country Bumpkin informed me they had a stitch a long coming up of one of the projects in the current issue (issue 76) of 'Inspirations' magazine. I'm a little late in writing about it but you can still join in if you want to. It's a gorgeous appliqué/embroidery pattern called Flame Tree by Kelly Fletcher.  Maybe you can't really tell from the photo but 17 different embroidery stitches were used in this pattern, including one of my favorites: the wheat ear stitch! You can join the Inspirations Stitch a long Flickr group here. 

Obviously you will need the magazine to make this project. You can buy both a printed and a digital copy on the Country Bumpkin website. As I understand it 'Inspirations' is available in the UK as 'Classical Inspirations'.

So because I needed to know what it was all about Country Bumpkin sent some copies of Inspirations magazine. I hadn't come across it before and was pleasantly surprised, it's like an embroidery glossy for the 'serious' stitcher! Sure some of the motifs and projects are fairly traditional but these techniques and stitches are of all times and would certainly interest any stitcher who is curious about learning new things and taking their skills to a higher level.

The best thing in my opinion are the detailed stitch and colour guides for each project, supported with great photography and diagrams. Lots of inspiration to be found in these pages! I even found a stitch (with 'how to') I hadn't heard of before, called the Porcupine Stitch. Must try that soon. :)

And how about this really lovely blackwork pincushion? 

I have two extra copies of 'Inspirations' here to give away to two lucky readers. As sending magazines to other parts of the world is really expensive I would like to send at least one of the two within Europe, I hope you understand. So if you are interested in winning a copy, please leave a comment and tell me your favourite stitch or technique and where you are in the world. Also don't forget to either leave an e-mail address or a profile that contains your e-mail address! Giveaway ends the 27th of December 12 AM Amsterdam time.    Comments closed winner will be announced later today 27/12/2012

Good luck everyone! 

I wasn't paid for this review (except that I received one copy) but was keen to share this fab magazine with you

2B or not 2B or transferring patterns with a pencil

Regularly I get questions about how I transfer my embroidery patterns to fabric. For a long time I mostly answered it with 'a water soluble marker'. However recently I had noticed that some of my embroidery work had yellow-y stains. I wasn't sure what caused it until I read this blogpost on Mary Corbet's Needle 'n Thread blog. So while it isn't 100% proven that the blue water soluble markers caused the stains on my embroidery work I am definitely more cautious about using them.

I mentioned this on my Facebook page and Judith (a very talented stitcher, check her work here) suggested using a 2B pencil instead. Now the wonderful thing about the blue markers was that I could change a design halfway a project and wash away the lines (or so I thought) so I thought I'd do a little 2B experiment to convince myself this ordinary grey pencil could do the trick too.  I have also read that some people use a HB pencil for tracing which is a slightly 'harder' pencil. The higher the 'H' number a pencil has (9H for example) the lighter the mark. High 'B' numbers are soft pencils which give dark (black) marks. An HB pencil is right in the middle.

I traced the little envelope (it's from this pattern sheet) by sticking the pattern to the window, putting the fabric on top and tracing the pattern onto the fabric with the 2B pencil (photo on the left). After that I tried to wash it out by simple rinsing it with water (photo on the right). The traced image is not completely washed out but has faded a lot. After that (not pictured) I used some detergent for hand washing clothes (and water obviously) and the marks seemed even less visible after that.

So...all in all I'm not unhappy with the results. Tracing with a regular pencil has a lot of advantages. Pencils like these are always on hand and the transferred image has fine, delicate yet clearly visible lines. Certainly for designs that you are not planning on changing halfway this is a method of transferring worth trying out!

There's a few other things I wanted to share with you. I started a new (smaller) shading/furry stitching project. And yes I traced it onto the fabric with a 2B pencil as well!

More about this project later this week.

Recently I wrote about the fabulous Illustration Stitch A Long me and Bridgeen are hosting on Flickr soon (starting January 2013). You can grab the button if you are stitching a long with us or want to promote it on your blog.

P.S. Less than one day to enter for the Mostly Ms Marvelous Rabbit Sewing Pattern Giveway!