Tag: embroidery

Why? Why did I make the top of the circle so close to the top of the material, especially when I had so much more room below? Because this sampler isn’t really a circle—the big wagon wheel flower knocks this into more of a square—the size of hoop that fits the design leaves a gap at the top. This size hoop would have worked, if only I’d paid more attention when centering the design on the material..

This one would have worked too, but again, gap.

This one does fit all the way around, but it makes everything look too squished.

Well, time to switch shapes. And now I have three sizes of hoops waiting in the wings.

This one was a big win from the Kiriki Pess sampler club. When it came in the mail, I thought, “If this one looks good when I’m done, it’s going on the wall. And thanks to the excellent instructions, it did turn out and it is going on the wall.

I think Kiriki Press’s talent is teaching cool skills with her samplers. In this one, I learned about blending strands to show different shades of hair. Plus I learned Turkey Work stitch. I’m not going to lie. I had to set aside the half-done Turkey Work for a few weeks because I was scared. But I eventually picked it back up and finished making all those strands into a tidy bun. Matt had to hold sections while I worked.

I also liked this section. This is actually much simper than it looks. Two diagonal crossed strands (purple going to the right and alternating pink and green going to the left) and then the circle part is woven around the grid.

Here’s the back, for people who like to look at backs.

I wish the lettering and outlines were in a darker color, but I think she must have had to choose one color and needed the light purple for the shawl background. Overall, still a big win.

I loved this #Yearofstitch sampler. The stitches this time: raised fishbone, lazy daisy, triple lazy daisy, figure eight knot, buttonhole wheel, woven wheel. Figure eight knots and fishbone stitch were new to me. I’m quite pleased at how things turned out. This one is getting framed!

I chose to use a quote from my stack of 3×5 cards of quotes I’ve collected over the years. When I went to write up an Instagram post, I googled to find out who said it and found that I had written it down wrong. Alfred, Lord Tennyson actually said, Cleave every to the sunnIER side of doubt. I was so very close.

I was glad the padded fishbone stitch worked. Shannon had a few tips that kept me on track. And I love figure eight knots. I think they look better than French knots.

This wasn’t my first woven wheel, but it was the biggest. That’s two skiens of black floss you are looking at there, just in that woven wheel. And I stopped a little earlier than I should have. I added one of those leaves to cover up that a few bits of the woven wheel framework that was still showing.

As with the other four #Yearofstitch samplers from Badass Cross stitch, this was incredibly fun.

I’m excited about this one. I’m looking forward to experimenting with two kinds of strands.

Shannon’s suggested text said “Bodily autonomy for all” and while that was a fine sentiment, I wanted to use the quote that was in the running for sampler No. 3 but didn’t make the cut.

And you can see that I learned from last time that I should first transfer the design then reposition the material and transfer the lettering.

We did sampler no. 4 on Aida fabric, a fabric I’d not stitched on since Regan was president. I don’t love it, because it reminds me of my cross stitching past, but it was very handy for gridding out all these filling stitches.

Unlike the last sampler, I’m quite pleased at the colors I chose.

Here we have Hungarian stitch and cushion stitch. Hungarian stitch, the first one, turned out to be my favorite. I used twelve strands, not liking how it looked with six strands, and it was a thumb killer, but look how great it looks! Unfortunately, cushion stitch came early on and I wasn’t sure what to do if the pattern didn’t perfectly repeat, so some letters are a little short.

Next are raised stem band stitch and fern stitch. Raised stem band stitch was quick, but I didn’t like how it was a bit wavy in places. Fern stitch was my second favorite, looks-wise.

The last two are tied gobelin stitch and French stitch. I liked the complexity of tied gobelin stitch and how firm it was, plus it had such good coverage. Shannon pointed out that French stitch should be called vulva stitch, and that made me laugh. With the number of strands I was using it wasn’t quite so obvious, but it for sure looked like it in her example stitches.

I outlined everything in backstitch and that took forever and used a lot of thread, but was worth it in the end, I think.

And here is the back, because it’s fun to look at the backs of things. Aside from raised stem band stitch (the red and pink one) being wavy, it also had those long runners on the back I didn’t like.

The next sampler will not be as intensive. This did take a bit of time. But was well worth it.

I love, love, love how this one turned out. Yay for Beach Day!

Aside from liking the beach, I bought this sampler because I was curious about how to make the hat. How does one get embroidery to stick up like that?

In this case, I was instructed to do couching stitch to build up half of a sphere and then cover it with detached buttonhole. Brilliant! The base of the flip flop is just chain stitch, but with that thread color, it looks like a rattan sandal.

This stitched up fast, too! Probably the hardest part was tying that bow.

Since the weaving part is sitting above the fabric, you can weave in the ends underneath the weaving part on the front! Brilliant! Much better than tying off a million knots.

I’m now working on a holder for my handy little darning machine.

We got to choose our own quote to go into the quote section. I chose to use Wallace Stevens’s words.

As usual, colors continue to be tough for me. I’m happy with my bird, and I think the nest goes well, but I think I lost my way when it came to the frondy things.

Despite my color mishaps, this was a very fun sampler to complete. I also figured out how basket weave stitch should work when you have two or more colors: the color is woven the same way every time. It doesn’t alternate! You can see what happened when I didn’t know that.

This was a fun one. My satin stitch continues to improve. And it was the easiest thing in the lineup, so I think that’s a win.

Here’s a closeup of my work

And one from the other side. As per usual with Kirkiki Press, I did some ripping out. The middle heart is single strand, but that wasn’t the way I stitched it the first time.

You can also see that I didn’t quite have the spacing correct for the Herringbone Ladder on this side and things got crowded.

Herringbone Ladder was the most challenging thing. I found it hard to wrap my mind around where the loops should start. I eventually got it, though.

The bonus pattern was this cute anatomical heart. It was very quick to stitch up and I didn’t have much trouble with it.

Here’s the full layout, including the coupon code. I greatly admire this company’s business acumen, as well as the artistic merit.