Monday Project - Return of the Sheep

Remember the sheep from January's silk painting?  They're back!  This time I'm using them in an embroidery pattern.  I put them on a kitchen towel, however they would look cute on other things such as pillowcases or children's clothing.

Materials:
*kitchen towel or fabric - the diaper fabric I use to clean my glasses is working so well, I decided to try it out on dishes
*embroidery floss - I used a variegated brown, a variegated black/gray, dark green, light green, two colors of peach, and black
*transfer paper
*pattern found here

I used embroidery transfer paper to put the design onto the fabric and then went over it with a sharp pencil to help the lines show up better.

Sew all the lines with an outline stitch, the flower petals with a lazy daisy stitch, and the eyes of the sheep and centers of the flowers with french knots - all with two strands of floss.  It was hard to keep french knots from coming through this fabric, so I tied a knot after each on the back of the fabric and that seemed to help.

Some of you have asked how I deal with tying off embroidery floss without knots.  There are a few different ways to deal with this.  I leave about 4 inches when I begin each strand ...

... and when I finish using the thread I weave it through floss on the back of the design a few times ...

... and then trim the threads close to the fabric.  Then I go back to the four inches of floss I left at the beginning, thread it through the needle, and weave it in the same way.

Happy Creating!  Deborah