Lovely (handmade) gifts

Just at the end of 2014 I received a lovely package full of goodies, including this wonderful hand stitched brooch my friend Sami made for me! I'm wearing it today but thought this old book was a better backdrop for a photo than my wrinkled cardigan. It wasn't a swap technically as both me & Sami just (without knowing we were planning to) sent each other a few goodies around Christmas time. :)

I don't do many swaps anymore as they always stress me out a bit but I had much fun with the &Stitches Bloggers Secret Santa swap. Rebecca sent me an amazing package with a fabulous pouch (Polar Bear from Sophie's fab Stitch the Halls book!) and a very pretty pieced mug rug (a.k.a glass of white wine rug). Rebecca's package also included lots of different M & M varieties, which my daughters loved. Over here you can only buy the chocolate and peanut M & M s.... Rebecca has a post featuring the whole loot on her blog!

I sent a Moomin Snorkmaiden drawstring bag with goodies to Julie. I adapted one of the Sublime Stitching Moomin patterns to make it look more winter-y.

My bestie Caroline went to Japan and brought me heaps & heaps of fabric, including this super cute animal print. No idea what the owl is on about but I'm sure it's something nice. :)

On the side

Between fine tuning and hosting the Furry Nice Class, birthdays and a lot (like: really A LOT) of school free days and school holidays between mid April and mid May it's hard to find time for 'fun' projects but I'm trying to squeeze in one nevertheless... This project is quite small, worked with two threads (instead of my usual one-thread-only-for-furry-stitching-policy) and a lot of fun to do.

You can properly view the end result in a few weeks time but I can reveal it has something to do with Alyssa Thomas' new fabric line Here Kitty Kitty which is not out until May.

Here Kitty Kitty features some seriously cute cat and crafty inspired designs and if you're quick you can pre-order a Fat Quarter Bundle and get two free embroidery patterns and a quilt pattern as well! (this offer ends the 22nd of April ) Sounds like a great deal to me :)

In other stitchy news: on the &Stitches blog we are hosting a fun embroidery swap. This is actually the last day you can sign up so go and check out the details here quickly.

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.

Said one dinosaur to the other...

This is the embroidery I made for the Phat Quarter Embroidery Swap on Flickr. The theme was 'It's not the end of the world' and I almost immediately thought of stitching these dinosaurs having a casual conversation. The idea (and conversation) is based on a Dutch magazine ad from about 20 years ago to promote milk. I couldn't find the original ad (I thought you could find about anything on internet but apparently not 20 year old milk advertisements...) so I created my own version. I traced the T rex from a kids book I found online and I made his munching pal up.

The stitching is far from perfect, although I'm quite pleased with the shading on both reptiles. My swap partner Freddy listed blue as her favourite colour so that gave me the idea to almost exclusively use blue shades, I used about 6 different shades for this embroidery. The meteorite has a little bit of glow-in-the-dark thread. Not the easiest thread to embroider with but I got reasonably ok results with the smaller stitches.

I also have received my swap piece from Kristen earlier this week:

I must admit that I was very thrilled when I found out that Kristen was going to make something for me. According to Kristen this is a quote from a Led Zeppelin song.  It's an awesome piece and I love it a lot. I have a soft spot for music related embroideries. Previously I received embroidered quotes from a Smiths song and bought a stitched portrait of Tom Waits and a quote from one of his songs... Next addition to my collection has to be something Foo Fighters related but I guess I will need to embroider it myself, unless there are any volunteers?!?

And the stitching goes on....

From a crafty perspective the beginning of 2012 seems to be all about embroidery for me...I haven't been near the sewing machine the last couple of weeks. Maybe the ongoing bedroom/craft room make over is to blame? It's all a bit messy and dusty right now but once it's finished I will have a separate room with enough space for  at least two tables (for my sewing machine and for drawing/cutting) and my fabric cabinet!

So for now it's mainly embroidery that I keep myself occupied with. Mr. T (Rex) above is part of a piece I'm making for an embroidery swap. I think it is turning out really and will show you the whole thing when my swap partner has received it. Even if it's slightly stressful it is great to make a piece outside your 'comfort zone' so I'd like to encourage everyone to take part in one of these embroidery swaps!

Oh and in case you missed it, I left the Feeling Stitchy blog (see my goodbye post here) and I was touched by all the kind comments here, there and everywhere. :) Incidentally my &Stitches partner in crime Carina also said au revoir.  However we are planning some fun things for the &Stitches blog so please consider following us there. :)

The Doubtful Guest

I had so much fun stitching this piece for Lauren for this (last) months Phat Quarter Swap. The theme was books and Lauren had listed Ed Gorey in her 'like' list. I hadn't heard of him so I did some googling to find out more about him. I haven't had the chance to read any of his books yet but he sure is an amazing illustrator! I based my embroidery on one of his illustrations from the book 'The Doubtful Guest'. Working with a limited colour palette was definitely very inspiring. The original is black and white and I added a little (blue) splash of colour. The fabric ('Heath' by Alexander Henry) was perfect to stitch on as well. I ordered it in several colourways so you probably will be seeing more of my embroideries stitched on this fabric.

The cross hatch has a retro feel to it which suited this Embroidery particularly well, I think. The fringe on his scarf is 'real'. I used the Turkey Stitch to create it. :)  By the way, Lauren is an amazing stitcher, check out her wonderful Duvet Cover Project here.

Earlier tonight I came across this rather disturbing news posted by Jenny Hart on her blog. Apparently two of her pieces were stolen after an exhibition in Canada. Unbelievable! Well they are pretty awesome but surely no one has the right to steal them. Check out the details on her blog, obviously Jenny wants them back!

Blocks from scraps & a finished embroidery

For the last two weeks orso instead of being glued to the couch with my laptop at night  and when I'm not embroidering, I try to do a little bit of quilting. I started making these blocks from the scraps I recently received in the mail and what was in my scrap basket. This quilt is perfect for my oldest daughter. She is 10 and needs a funkier quilt on her bed than the shabby chic one I made her two years ago. I think it's amazing how well all these different fabrics and colours 'work' together. I am mainly using (hot) pink, yellow, orange and many shades of purple as well. To 'tame' the vibrant colours and mix of prints a tiny bit I have added grey dotted and white borders to the blocks. I also have revised my opinion on the colour orange. Orange is actually a great and easy colour to combine with many other colours.

I finally finished my Ophelia embroidery for the Phat Quarter Swap too. Again I'm assuming my swap partner does not visit my blog. I did a lot of the embroidering free hand, sometime I used a water soluble pen to draw some details though.

And the cords of her headphone are 'loose' threads only connected to the headphones themselves and the Ipod she holds in her hand. So it's a bit different from the embroideries I usually do but I still think she turned out rather well!

Don't forget to enter the Embroidery Mystery Book Giveaway! Comments close this Friday.

Tiny stitches

For the past week I've been working on this embroidery for a swap on Flickr. I assume my swap partner does not visit my blog so I thought I could share a WIP picture here. I'm a bit nervous about it all as my swap partner is an amazingly talented embroiderer. The theme of the swap is music. I love music but I had a hard time trying to connect to my partner's taste in music. Eventually I was drawn to an album title (Ophelia) and started the project there. I made some sketches before hand but I'm largely making it up as I go along. Ophelia is a character from Hamlet. She drowns in a brook. There are many lovely art works with this theme and I'm especially inspired by this pastel drawing by Odilon Redon, this painting by Millais and the lovely 'stamp' embroideries by Penny Nickels. (see picture below)

And at the same time I'm trying to do 'my own thing'. The good thing about a swap like this, is that it forces me to step outside my Embroidery Comfort Zone and create something different from the stuff I usually do.