Birdie embroidery

Eagle-memoried viewers may remember a little birdie embroidery kit I wrote about back in February.  I got three little kits from Nancy Nicholson for Christmas.  Nancy didn't buy them for me (she didn't buy me anything, can you believe that??), they were from Mr CA and wonderful parents.

I finally finished another one.

I actually stitched it in just a few evenings, but it took me a while to get started.  The kit contains a piece of cotton with the bird printed on in colour.  You get some embroidery floss and a stitch guide, but of course you can go it alone and do whatever you like.

Oh - I meant to put a little yellow french knot in the middle of those blue flowers, I'd completely forgotten!  The tail is a six-strand of floss couched down.  I haven't really done couching before and I was thinking of lots of possibilities for this technique as I was stitching it.

It's mounted in a plastic hoop.  The reason being that the first kit I did was oval shaped.  I assumed they were all oval shaped so went on line to find an oval hoop.  The wooden ones are the wrong proportions/ratio, only the plastic ones came in the right size.  When I then discovered some of the embroideries are circular, I had to buy matching frames.

The kits come in a little bag with a design printed on the front.  I embroidered this one.  I can't find the last one but when I do I will embroider that too, oh and I have another kit too!

When I showed you my Silk Ribbon, I promised to show you a shot of my "gallery".  These embroideries aren't in the gallery, they're on the opposite dining room wall along side my beautiful glass piece that the wonderful parents bought me for my birthday one year.

I might have to rearrange a bit when the third one is done, especially as I can't remember if it's round or oval!

On the opposite wall, where there is an arch through to my living room, is my gallery and here it is.

You can just see my printer in the bottom right hand corner, this is where I'm sitting to blog right now.  I'm putting loads of different embroidered hoops on this wall.  Square or rectangular "art" (hahahaha, I just said art.  About the crap I make!) is hanging on the stairs.  One day I will show you a shot of that too, but it's a bit sparse at the minute.  I need to get my finger out, get hanging and get embroidering.  

I haven't been very consistent with my blog post tags, so I can't link to all of the posts on these individual hoops, but you can find some of them here and here, if you're interested.

Hoopla.... again

Yep, I've had Hoop-la! 100 Things to do with Embroidery Hoops by Kirsty Neale out again!  This time I tackled the applique bunny.  I say tackled but it was really easy.  The hardest part was choosing the fabrics.

I went for blue on red as they're my favourite colours.  I realised after I'd finished that I'd made a mistake.  One of the ears is supposed to flop forward, but I'd taken the pattern upstairs to cut out the bunny and fuse him to the background fabric without reading the instructions.  That'll teach me!

I LOVE the way Kirsty adds crochet to her hoops so I followed her pattern.  I made my foundation stitches too small which meant I couldn't get the right size hook through and couldn't get two stitches in each as the pattern required.  As I'd already laced the bunny into the hoop at this point, it was too late to pick out the stitches and start again.  So I persevered.

See how the edge sticks straight up rather than out?

So I blocked it.  I pinned each scallop outwards and soaked it with water (a bit too much water!) and they lay correctly.

It's sitting on my table waiting to be added to my gallery, but each day the scallops lift up a little more!

Hoopla

After admiring the book Hoop-la! 100 Things to do with Embroidery Hoops by Kirsty Neale each time I saw a blog review, I finally splashed out and bought it.  It is a lovely book, full of ideas.  It also features 2 bunny projects.  This one is called Hipster bunnies and I was disappointed to find out it's not a pattern, but a photo printed onto fabric.  That wasn't going to stop me though, I just traced it!

I painted a hoop in blue to frame it, when I came to do the framing, I discovered I'd painted the wrong hoop!

This is the right hoop!  It's 3" x 3".  The bunnies are appliqued and then outlined in 1 strand of black embroidery floss.  I love them.

I think it must be Colin and Ellis in this picture.  Ellis is a pretty lady and Colin... well Colin is my lovely Colin!

I laced the back but decided I couldn't be bothered to sew on a circle of felt, after all, this is for me and will be on the wall so no-one will ever see the back.

I've got another hoop bunny project in the works, then I just need one more to make my four bunnies...

embroidery

My apologies for the dull title.  I sat here staring into space trying to think of something imaginative, but no, didn't happen. 

This, ladies and gentlemen, is WIP #10 - "vintage" embroidery, completed and crossed off the list.  I found the pattern on Flickr a long time ago - here.  I started stitching, but just stopped.  I decided it was time to continue.

I used Perle cotton number 8 for all of it, so was a bit limited as to the colours I could use as I only had a certain range.  I did try to vary my stitches though.  The leaves are done in fly stitch, the flowers, body of the bird and heart are all satin stitch.

The flourishes to either side of the heart are raised bar stitch, this was a new stitch to me, found in the fab stitching book my MIL bought me for Christmas - Stitchopedia.  The heart is filled with a simple latice with cross stitches at the joining points.  I had picked out a more elaborate stitch, but the lattice ended up too closely spaced.  I'm not sure about my choice of colours for this part, but it's done now!

The main body of the bird is satin stitch, with the tail feathers in fly stitch and the wing another latice over a base of satin stitch.  I used to hate satin stitch, but this time I started with an outline in split stitch and found it much easier to do.

The hoop is in place and has a felt backing, ready to hang in my gallery.  I was going to cover the frame with washi tape, but the wood showed through - I think it needs painting white first, but can't see that happening any time soon!

Done!

Morning ladies!  I only woke up at 10 this morning, and that was only because Mr CA was crashing about.  You know how noisy men are when they're trying to be quiet?  I've got a lovely day planned.  Mr CA has taken the girls to town, so I'm going to catch up on a few blogs, then I'm going to make stuff.  Loads of stuff.

Something terrible has happened though.  I mean, really, really, how will I go on terrible.  My coffee machine has died.  Just like that.  Last week my GHDs died, then my hairdrier - that was bad enough, who wants to walk around looking like they've got a mop on their head?  But now my coffee machine?  I've got some seriously bad Karma going on.

I haven't managed to make much this week, but I have finished a few things off.  Want to see?

Remember I showed you the polymer clay beads I'd learnt to make?  Well I finished off the canes we'd made in class, then I made some more in red, blue and white.  Not terribly successful this time, the red and white were so squidgy.  I made them into beads too and then baked the lot.

I've also finished off my Geisha and the sewing lady and added them to my gallery.  I think it definitely warrents being called a gallery now.

By finished off, I mean the backs.  Before they were just laced at the back, but now I've added the felt.  Like this:

(didn't have a bit enough piece of felt and so had to join two).  And this:

I also added felt to the back of the teeny tiny embroidery that started it all off.  Before I'd just folded the fabric over the back of the hoop and stuck it down with washi tape.  I think this is more secure.

What do you think of my gallery then?  Coming along nicely I think!

Don't forget to enter my Something Old, Something New competition.  The deadline is 31st July and there is a prize!