Saturday, May 28, 2016

Owl Embroidery Project - Part Two


You may remember my owl stitching project {part one}.  Since that post, I finished all the stitching.  
For the motif at the bottom, I did a Whipped Stem Stitch in blue with silver metallic cord:




I finished the owl with some French Knots on his wings and head:




I love the color palette I used on this sweet owl.  It really looks good with the blue and silver.
Here are the colors I used for this project:


  

Monday, May 23, 2016

Roman Filling Stitch







This interesting stitch is the Roman Filling Stitch. This is the latest stitch I have learned from my 100 Stitches Plus list.


I found the directions for this stitch in Embroidery Stitches by Mary Webb.  This stitch is made up of two stitches, a series of seven vertical Straight Stitches in varying lengths, each crossed with a tiny horizontal Straight Stitch.  It is a good stitch to use for filling in large shapes.

That sounds really simple and straightforward right?

For me, it was so hard to keep the stitch spacing even and my lines straight!  

I used a ruler and marked guidelines, but still....

For my demonstration, I used perle cotton floss in black and white.  With the single strand perle cotton it is so much easier to see my process.  I also spaced my stitches pretty far apart so that you can easily see them.



So first off, I drew two parallel guidelines 1/2" apart. I brought my needle up through the fabric on the top guideline.  I found it easiest to make the longest vertical Straight Stitch first and then space all the others off that.


I pulled all the way through and then went back into the fabric on the bottom guideline:



That formed the first Straight Stitch.


Then I added six more vertical Straight Stitches, evenly spaced with three on each side of the longest stitch.














When that was finished, the next step is the horizontal stitches across each vertical stitch.  I used white floss for this step:



I came up through the fabric alongside the first stitch on the left side:


and went back into the fabric on the right side of the first stitch:



I pulled all the way through to make the first horizontal Straight Stitch.  



Then I just repeated that over each of the vertical stitches:


Here is a view of the underside of the stitching:


This is a fairly simple stitch and I am looking forward to trying this as a filler for some larger shapes in my embroidery.

Friday, May 20, 2016

Fox Embroidery Pattern



I have a new hand embroidery pattern set available in my Etsy shop.  
Titled Sly Fox, it features a sly little fox and his woodland home.  
If you follow me on Instagram, you may have already seen this picture:


I was having some fun coloring some of the images with art pencils. 

Since then, I have stitched up this image.  I really like his sweet face:



Especially his Satin Stitched eyes.  I used the Lazy Daisy stitch for the flowers:


There are so many images, text and borders in this pattern set.  I have a lot of projects planned.  Here is a look at the set:



Tuesday, May 3, 2016

Owl Embroidery Project Part One


I wanted to share my progress on an owl embroidery project I recently started.  These motifs are from my Owl embroidery pattern set.  I used this wide eyed owl, a moon and stars border motif, a swirly line motif, and some text.  I arranged them together and selected some floss colors: 



I have stitched several of the elements and I especially wanted to share the stitching I did for the moon.  This is Whipped Blanket Stitch that I wove with gold metallic cord: 


I stitched the stars with Straight Stitch and I  Couched the swirly lines.  I also added some French Knots.  
I love the shade of this blue floss.  It is DMC 322.  
For the stars, I used two strands of the blue and two strands of blending filament.  This is Kreinik 032.  For the swirly lines, I used six strands of the blue and couched them with four strands of the blending filament.  
The French Knots are also done with six strands of blue but two strands of blending filament.


The text turned out nicely - I used Stem Stitch and then a Blanket Stitch to add emphasis to the left line of the H:


I am just about finished with this project and I will be back with a part two post to share all the details.