My Christmas Embroidery Project

I was awol last week as we went and picked up our new puppy, Baxter!  He's a darling now 9-week old English Shepherd who takes quite a bit of time, but is so fun that we're glad to give it!  In between naps, training, supervising him with the cats, and lessons on not nipping, I have actually gotten a little bit of time to work on my embroidery project inspired by Dorothy Tucker's work, that I wrote about here.  I hoped to finish it last week (ha!!) and am now not sure I'll be done by Christmas, so I wanted to at least show you what I was doing.

I downloaded a botanical photo of holly, printed it onto fabric made to go through the printer (most craft stores carry this now), found thread colors (some that matched, some that added some "pop"), and began using an outline stitch to outline leaves, stems, and berries and other stitches to fill in and add interest.  If you're new to embroidery, I have a tutorial here on a few basic stitches.  If you already have these mastered, grab an embroidery stitch book or go to an internet site such as Sharon B's and just let your imagination go.  That's one of the nice things about doing embroidery this way - there's no right or wrong and you don't even have to plan ahead, just stitch what you feel like at the moment!  And a little more about where I got the photo - if you haven't yet discovered The Graphics Fairy, be sure to take a look!  Karen finds and posts vintage images that are great to use in needlework and crafts.  The botanical holly image is here.

I'm going to work hard at getting a Friday Inspiration up this week (fingers crossed and pup willing!), but after that I'll be on hiatus until after New Year's.  

Happy Holidays!!

Deborah

Friday Inspiration - Frost and Natalia Margulis

We've had a few magical mornings here this week - those days when you wake up to a sparkling, glittery fairy land of sun and heavy frost!  True, it does make things a bit slippery, but oh so beautiful.

I've been looking at Natalia Margulis' work since last summer and the more I look, the more I'm amazed.  While I like realistic fiber work and tromp l'oeil, her pieces take these genres to a new level!

Fine Ice

It's really easy to believe one's looking at a photograph, but everything is hand and machine embroidered with a variety of materials, including hand dyed ribbons and fabrics.

Patriotic Devotion

Her textures are amazing!

Laces at the Curb

Be sure to look at all her work (there's lots!) on her website here.  It's definitely worth a leisurely look with a cup of something hot!

Happy Creating!  Deborah



x

Friday Inspiration - Christmas Embroidery on Sweaters

Okay - it's now December and time to come to grips with reality.  The Christmas sweaters that in June I was sure I would be able to finish by now are .... not even started.  They're not going to happen!  But all is not lost - there is a really cool way to quickly (and securely) embroider on already knit sweaters.  Susan B. Anderson has a great YouTube video showing a chain/wrap stitch combo that can be used to make about any design.  And to get a thinner line of embroidery, use a smaller thickness yarn such as fingering or lace.  If the video below doesn't work for you, the video is here.




If your creative juices are flowing, this is probably all you'll need to take off on creating some fun designs.  And then if you're like the rest of us, still in a post-Thanksgiving fuzz, here are some places to find fun ideas.

The Spruce has 10 free Christmas embroidery patterns, several of which would work great on a sweater!  Find the links here.

Craftsy has several designs, some of which translate very well into the chain stitch technique and some that will require knowledge of a few more simple embroidery stitches.  Patterns are here.

And this Pinterest board has a lot of simple line Christmas embroidery patterns that would work great with a chain stitch!  See it here.

I have another Christmas embroidery project going that I'm hoping to show progress on next week!  Fingers crossed for some quiet, peaceful embroidery time!

Happy Creating!  Deborah