My First Large Embroidery Project

I designed this embroidery piece for a large hoop, using Aunt Martha's Flour Sack Tea Towels by Colonial Patterns, Inc.  (www.colonialpatterns.com).  Several times I have despaired of trying to find a practical use for it.  Who the deleted expletive wants an embroidered tea towel?  You put them out when you have guests and hope they don't actually use them.  The cloth lends itself well to embroidery, though.  I like it better than Aida cloth unless you're having to count the little squares.

 

I thought of turning the towel into an accent pillow.  This would be doable, but the pillow would be a rather odd shape.  Also, I hadn't positioned the drawing in the precise middle of the cloth.  Had it been in the precise middle, I could have sewn two tea towels together into a pillow.  Still, that's a predominantly white pillow in a dirty world.

 

Finally I hit on using tote bag blanks, which are inexpensive and readily available.  For numerous reasons, I would not advocate embroidering directly on these tote bags.  You need to be able to see the back of your embroidery, especially if you are using specialty threads that are likely to tangle up.  Also, you don't want to leave the inevitably snarled and knotted back on the inside of the tote where people will be putting things.  Some embroiderers prefer not to use knots; they leave a tail of thread instead of a knot.  They finish by pulling the leftover thread through the back of existent stitches. This method works, but the back of your embroidery will never be pretty - or secure, if somebody can get an object hung in it.

 

With a tote bag this size (roughly 13" by 13"), I was able to make a complimentary split stitch frame all around the picture.  The picture itself uses every kind of thread I had available - cotton, satin (rayon), acrylic, and the heavier pearl cotton.

 

Here is some useful art!  Get your creativity going!

Christmas Projects

This month I've been making and writing about craft projects that would make nice Christmas gifts and could be finished in time for Christmas.  I showed an incomplete version of the top one in an earlier post; this is how it turned out.  Working with embroidery and shapes on felt is something even children can have a part of.  I cut out and dressed the cat lady head shot just like I used to cut out paper dolls.  It is easy to attach these little creations to a tote bag blank.  You can find my Examiner.com hobbies articles with step by step guides at http://exm.nr/Og7M3c.

On Examiner.com, I write careful instructions for people with little craft background who would like to make something.  Here I write about the experience and joy of the thing.
 
The second item is a handmade hosiery bag, a project I came up with out of desperation.  I had bought a couple of balls of 86% bamboo viscose yarn.  As you can see, it's so beautiful and satiny!  It's also very comfortable to crochet with.  There is only one problem - this yarn must be hand washed and dried flat.  What useful small thing could I make with those limitations?  Finally I remembered a crocheted bag I use for my nylons.  That's the ticket!

Of course, a good hosiery bag needs lining, but I had that covered.  Once I bought a lined skirt that didn't fit and saved it for its beautiful fabric.  That ought to be enough lining for a project no more than 13" long!  (The ball I bought contained only 63 yards; bamboo yarn is expensive.)

I hand hemmed and attached the lining; you don't want a sewing machine anywhere around hand crocheted or knitted products.  This made for a rather convoluted set of instructions, and I had to use Paintbrush for my slideshow:

I included the minor tutorial on buttons because so many people don't understand the difference between types.  When I first learned sewing in seventh grade, I was the only one in the class who sewed the flat button on right. - I read the instructions!

 

These are just small items and small hobbies, but they can make appreciated gifts. 

Christmas Cards

These are three Christmas card and accessory designs I've put up at my zazzle.com/peaypatch* store.  I am still struggling to get the proper size image to make the Zazzle products I'd like to.  These pictures are historical Christmas fantasies - one a French shop in the 1820s, and the other two a department store scene from the 1920s.  As always, I'm trying to produce something colorful, eye catching, and amusing.

These two smaller pictures were drawn from a book of old fashioned Christmas cards.  Thank heaven for Dover Publications!  they are always there for anybody interested in art and costume history.

I'd love to see some of these cards being enjoyed by actual people.

 

Christmas Projects

 These last two weeks I've been dreaming up Christmas projects that can be done relatively easily.  Above is a 4" square tote bag blank.  I decorated it with this Aida cloth embroidery which I did on my 4" by 8" embroidery frame.

 When you use an embroidery frame, the cloth will not slip out (unless you give it a really hard yank).  It does, however, move around a bit when you use standard Aida cloth.  I've begun a new approach to the frame:

.

This image is made of craft felt and crushed panne velour.  This is sort of my own style, inspired by church banners and religious hangings.  I have used a stencil to draw in some appropriate flower and leaf designs.  These stencils, by the way, are really meant to be painted over, but you can draw around them to get a general idea of what you want.  On a background of light blue felt and placed a cat cutout of tan felt with clothing of panne velour.  As you can see, I am having to satin stitch around the edges of the velour.  Felt is virually the ONLY fabric you can cut up without it raveling.  Velour and fleece do fairly well, but you still need to satin stitch.

As you can see, I'm only partway through this project.  It will go on another of those tote blanks to make a nice Christmas present.  I'll show how it turns out later.  The good news is that the felt holds almost completely still in the frame, so the work is easy.  The satin stitching is in satin (rayon) embroidery thread which will knot up at the slightest opportunity.  Working it on felt has been easier than usual.  I've made large tote bags this way in the past, but right now I'm just trying for quick, unique  projects for Christmas.

 

Embroidery on the No-Slip Hoop!

I honestly didn't believe a no-slip hoop existed!  They are made by Morgan Quality Products of Chanhassen, MN (www.nosliphoops.com) and cost more than the average hoop.  But are they ever worth it!  You will note the huge screw and nut apparatus on the side.  That, combined with cleverly molded smooth plastic, makes a hoop that is a joy to work with!

 

 

Here is Nubi performing the Cat Test - leaning his weight against the stretched fabric.  It stayed in place!  Hollywood sat on it for some minutes yesterday, but I was on the phone and couldn't get a picture.  You have to get used to this sort of thing with cats.

I designed the picture after Mucha's 'Le Reve', using one of the sack cloth tea towel blanks.  Then I became discouraged.  The hoop I had was old and wouldn't hold the fabric taut, and then there was another problem.  Who the deleted expletive wants a tea towel?  I finally decided to sew the thing together and stuff it as an accent pillow; people actually enjoy those.  A hobby is a lot more satisfying if somebody is likely to enjoy the results.

I've used a full variety of embroidery thread to make this project special - metallic, acrylic, satin (rayon), and cotton, including heavy, single strand pearl cotton.  I even used (ssh!) fine knitting wool.

When I was first learning about knitting threads, I had a chance to buy some baby alpaca.  I'd read about alpaca all my life, so I wanted to try some.  Unfortunately, I didn't realize that 'baby' meant a very thin, fine yarn, also known as 'fingering'.  Obviously, some people knit and crochet with it, but that tiny thread just turns into knots and snarls for me.  It does, however, embroider beautifully and provided me a nice leafy effect.

You can make art with cloth and thread - just make sure it's art somebody would want in their house.

My Embroidery Project

I've embroidered since my preteen years, but, now that I'm a Hobbies Examiner for Examiner.com, I've been trying to think of meaningful, relevant embroidery projects.  Yes, embroidery has been important historically, but part of that time it was important as a refined, meaningless occupation for ladies.  I mean, who ever wanted to use the painfully worked stuff?  It was just a husband-catching mechanism.

 

I've thought up a few projects that might actually make a desirable gift for a loved one.  My first is pictured above.  I've included the sketch on the embroidery frame, the photo original I took it from, and the stencil I used to add some holiday greenery.  The little blue dots mark the boundaries of my project.  I plan to compete and hem this picture and sew it onto a 4" x 4" 'blank' tote bag.  This ought to make an attractive gift, and it shouldn't be beyond the ability of an average embroiderer.

 

Then I realized that a lot of embroidery methods aren't basic, everyday knowledge, so I wrote this article: http://www.examiner.com/article/embroider-a-picture-beginning-basics. 

Embroidery is such a huge field, bigger even than knitting or crocheting.  I was amazed to find YouTube embroidery videos from Mumbai and Multan - quite a different kind than what I learned!

 

Now I am trying to choose the most accessible, least daunting techniques to write about.  Embroidery is part of a woman's heritage.  Since all the textile work was thrown at us, we developed our own language and expression in it.  We need to find that part of ourselves again.

Very Slowly Making an Afghan

Let's face it: this isn't a project for summer.  I started in the spring and have been going at my own pace.  Actually, I got the idea when I combined the big Sensations Rainbow Classic yarn (looks like a watermelon!) with Deborah Norville's Chunky Serenity.  I had intended to make a bunch of potholders and tote bags.  Then I saw how the colors worked together in such a varied, subtle way.  No!  Such beauty deserves a larger scope.  I decided to make an afghan - for me.  If somebody else likes it, I might make them one.

 

For maximum variety with minimal knowledge of patterns, I decided to crochet and knit panels alternately and sew them together.  The panels are 17" to 19" wide, and I decided a full panel should be 60" long.  That's as long as my tape measure is, and a five foot length is enough to provide a cover for the average human.  I don't know yet how many panels I'll make to complete the project.

 

Of course you'll have noticed Hollywood sitting on the edge of my project.  He has to get involved in anything big.  The really nice thing is that I don't have to worry if he sheds or throws up on it.  ACRYLIC YARN WASHES!  I can have something beautiful and not worry if the cat throws up on it.  Picture me dancing.

 

Come winter, Hollywood will be under the afghan whenever I have it out.