Stitching Updates

Seems like sewing has taken a back seat to embroidery the past few weeks, as I've grown more comfortable with the medium and more excited to introduce it to more of my projects. I thought I'd post an update on some of the stitching that's been going on around here.

First, I participated in the inaugural "Hand Stitched" Embroidery Swap over on Flickr. For this swap, we were assigned secret partners and asked to embroider something for them that was based on their preferences & style, and suitable for hanging in an embroidery hoop.

I was lucky enough to pull Paloma (aka Three Kitchen Fairies) as my swap partner. Paloma stated that she loves birds, cupcakes and, among other things, black & white polka dots.

Well, do you remember the little birds I stitched a few weeks back based upon some prints from Etsy seller beethings? Turns out there was a third design in that series, featuring a bird atop a happy smiling cupcake. Perfect!

Here's how it came out:

I was even able to work in some black & white dots via one of the border fabrics I selected. The only problem? In my web surfing travels, I found another design that I felt was equally perfect for Paloma. You see, her blog is called "three kitchen fairies" after her three beautiful daughters, so when I came across this embroidery pattern, I just couldn't help myself but to stitch it up for them:

On the receiving end of this swap, I received this wonderful little design from Amanda (amandahall25). Fall is, by far, my favorite season of the year, and I tend to gravitate towards autumnal colors, so this was PERFECT for me. It's already hanging in our kitchen! It's based on a pattern from one of my favorite embroidery designers, Corinne of SeptemberHouse.

(image taken from amandahall25's photostream)

As I've mentioned before, I've also been taking part in the Tea Towel Tour, hosted over on Craftster. Being part of this group has been so great, because it's like I took a crash course in embroidery! It helped me to learn new stitches & techniques, find great new resources for patterns, and overall just be inspired by the awesome talents of all of the group members.

I recently finished up my portion of the tour. Here are the final three designs I stitched up for others:

First, some lotus flower and hummingbird patterns frommy Sublime Stitching books for Kitten Wrangler, who was looking for designs based on Indonesian designs and motifs.

(Fish by ritapizza and circle designs by Pearliepie)

Here's a close-up of my portion:

Next up was a towel for IamSusie. The stitchers before me had mostly gone with floral and nature-themed designs. I took my cue from them, selected this badbird pattern and tried to draw inspiration from the colors used in the previous designs. Here's what I came up with:

Here's a great shot of IamSusie's entire towel before heading off to receive its final design:

Finally, for my final design of the swap, I embroidered a Jeep onto SaraJ2001's towel. She didn't have an overarching theme for her towel, but each of the stitchers before me selected something about Sarah from her online profile to represent on her towel. I saw that Sarah's dream car is a green Jeep, so I found this image online and stitched it up for her:

And finally, I just wanted to show off some more embroidery that I won from a giveaway on Rita's blog for Sew Mama Sew's Giveaway Day a few months back. The prize was an original embroidered design on a 20" pillow case. Here's what I received from Rita:

Isn't it the best? As soon as I can pick up a pillow form for this cover, it will live on my 3 year-old son's bed. I love my crafty friends!

I've been on a bit of a quilt block tear lately, so it'll be back to sewing for my next post!