Handstitching Love

If you're a handstitcher/embroidery enthusiast, here's a beautiful (and free!) sampler for you from the adorable blog Bakercourt!

Free Sampler Pattern

I love samplers and this one looks to be small enough and quick enough to stitch that even I could manage it. So sweet!

Hope you're all having a lovely week! I'm going to have my thoughts on Burda Style June 2013 up in the next day or so. I loved several pieces!  

Lu's Shadow Smocked Dress

Well, it's been quite a little weekend at my house! First I had a bit of a stomach virus (yay.) Then I discovered I was the proud owner of the rarest of rare Macbook Pro's....one with a crashing hardrive.

Do you know how long it takes to do a complete erase and install? Forever. Especially when it doesn't work and you have to do it again. And again. And finally give up and have to schedule a phone chat to explain it to the AppleStud (hi Mike!) who in the end says, 'Dang, girl. You already did everything I was going to make you do. Best send it in.'

ANYWAY. No sewing going on here, just dreaming of sewing. And no blog or email reading and I MISS YOU GUYS. I'm on a borrowed laptop now for kicks and giggles. (Addicted? Me?) And since I don't have anything new to show you, I thought I'd share something old!

This beautiful dress was an Easter dress for Lu when she was 3 years old.


The inspiration for the dress was an article in Sew Beautiful's Easter 1998 issue (my favorite issue ever!) I believe it was a Kay Guiles pictorial. I used a basic yoke dress pattern and the instructions in the magazine for the shadow smocking.

The smocked portion of the dress is at the waist, and involves a strip of fabric (in this case, a scalloped strip of blue cotton batiste) basted to the back of the skirt (white cotton batiste). When the skirt panel is pleated and smocked, the blue shadows through the white batiste creating the "shadow smocking".


The embroidery included a double feather stitch in cream with pink silk ribbon rosebuds.

The collars were treated to the same shadowed blue batiste and pink silk ribbon roses, then edged in gathered creamy cotton lace.


I have a real soft spot for this dress because of the laces. All three laces used on the center front bodice were vintage scraps from my grandma's sewing basket. I have a bit left of the narrow version, but I believe the wide center lace was the last of that piece. A little bit of my grandma stitched into Lu's dress. I'm the only grandchild who sews, so it has always been something I like to think I got from her.

There is featherstitching between the laces on the front, and I remember fussing over the silk floss I used (my first go at silk floss. And possibly my last. I've never mastered its slippery feel!)

The puff sleeves were trimmed in cotton laces, one a Swiss insertion and the other a gathered cotton.


The back of the dress buttoned down with creamy buttons. I hemstitched the placket by machine using one of my "fancy" stitches.


I hope you enjoyed this little walk back through early Quality Time sewing! I still have several things from Lu's baby & toddlerhood to share in the future. My utmost favorite dress, my own design, is yet to come. It is (if I do say so myself) DIVINE.

And there's sewing mojo too...I'm seriously into the 1930s right now, but another 1960s frock in white & blue madras plaid is calling my name too. Stay tuned!

mutual.

Admiration, that is.

The amazingly talented Niamh of Urban Threads just featured your own little jemima bean (aka ME) on her blog! SWEET!


Feel free to go HERE to view my 15 seconds of craft fame.

Since I am a huge fan of Niamh's artist-y goodness (and I've kind of had a crap October personally speaking) I feel all warm & fuzzy inside.

Thanks Niamh!

I've got two tees for my girl Lu ready for some UT embroidery, so keep watching (or should that be...watch out?)

I ask you, what's not to love about
humorously fabulous machine embroidery?

angel.

Another uber cool design from Urban Threads, embroidered this rainy afternoon while I stayed home with the very sickly G-man.


The angel...

(sometimes.)
Sidenote to my children... you know I love ya if I make something that requires re-hooping. Just sayin'.

No disaster, just mush.

Could listen to this forever.

secret.

I'm coming out of the closet. I watch disaster movies while I sew. My favorites are the world-ending ones like Armageddon or Independence Day or The Core. But I'll even watch less action-packed ones like Apollo 13 (Ok, I'll admit that has more to do with my crush on Tom Hanks. And Gary Sinise.)

And can we get a big woot for Netflix!? I'm addicted to watching on my laptop, and it sure was nice today while I was sick & achy to lounge on the couch & pick out movies to amuse myself.

I didn't waste a Saturday tho...since the plan is to lounge in my pj's for the entire weekend, I decided a new pj top might be in order. I set up the embroidery machine and let it do the work while I concentrated on saving the world (you know, vicariously and all that.)


Here's a close up of the design:

It's from a fairly new embroidery company called Urban Threads that I ran across last week. This little design was calling my name (along with a few more you'll be seeing soon I'm sure.) Stitched up perfect (the outline is off intentionally.)

It's kinda hard to do anything when you can't turn your head to the right. Or to the left. Yes, the neck & ear still hurt. But I really DO feel better! Thanks for all the well wishes (and antibiotics. Thank you Lord for antibiotics.)

Disaster film of the day. (Which kinda sucked. Not in a good way either.)

Listening to THIS.

Little Gifts Pt 2

I just finished this darling purse for my soon to be sister-in-law...


The pattern is from a picture tutorial HERE on SewForum. Thanks to the very generous smoon for instructions!

The monogram stitches out perfectly. I've used a ton of the letters, and they're ALL perfect! It's a freebie from Judie on her yahoo group.


The handles are medium longish. Long enough to go over your shoulder, but not so long you look like you're going to sack groceries in it.


and the closure features a buttonhole & vintage button from my button box.


I'm a bad Santa. I really want to keep this one. You know, if I could think of an "S" word to describe myself. ;)

Little Gifts

Freestanding Lace bookmark from Stitch Delight for Laney's Sunday School teacher (she will also get one of the monogrammed cups.) I don't see this set on SecretsOf, which is probably where I purchased it from. But it is still available on the StitchDelight site.


I also made this gorgeous FSL ice skate ornament this week, for a SWAP I'm participating in over at NanaPennyPockets...


The skate is part of Anita Goodesign's Holiday Lace collection. It is beautiful when finished but it took 90 MINUTES to stitch out on my Bernina 170E!!! Yowza. That's when a second machine would come in handy, huh? (If you remember, my 2nd machine...a Babylock Ellure...is still under house arrest with my sister. Blast her.) I used a silk ribbon to make the hang tie, and I'm thinking about adding some crystals with my hotwand to bling up the swirlies just a bit.

My SWAP partner is also receiving this cute little wristlet...


It's constructed from a placemat from Garden Ridge! The adorable snowman was a freebie from Charming Station Embroidery last month. I believe it's still on her yahoo group though, in the freebies. There was a whole set of redwork snowmen! I can't take credit for the placemat wristlet idea, I was inspired by an adorable one over at SewForum.

And Lu had a ball yesterday decororating this plain jane purple frame with odds & ends from my stash. I photoshopped the picture of she & her friend Karen, so that they're fairies in a fantasy land.



I have a ton of things to finish for Lu...but she won't leave my side. Nosy little thing. Oh, and we got this at Wally World yesterday (don't laugh at my complete laziness in the baking area. I'll bake cookies & pumpkin loafs and gingerbread men next weekend...but it will have to wait til semester tests are graded!!)


Gotta go & get crackin now! Toodles!

In a Pickle

The Christmas Pickle

You may or may not know the story of the Christmas Pickle. The Christmas pickle is a pickle-shaped ornament that is hidden deep in the boughs of the tree on Christmas Eve. On Christmas morning, the first child to find the Christmas pickle gets an extra gift from Saint Nicholas. (Or a year of good luck. As legends often do, it varies with the teller.)

This tradition is usually attributed to the Germans. The Germans say no. So nobody really knows, but if you do a little internet research you come up with a couple of plausible origins.

But that kinda takes the fun out of it.

I don't care where it originated, or even if its a complete fiction. After all, we hang stockings on the mantle too. So, this Christmas Eve I'll be hiding a pickle on my tree and we'll begin this cute little tradition at our house.

Just in case you want to join me, there's a spunky machine embroidered Christmas Pickle at Sew Weird. It's a free download, but you have to sign up for her newsletter to receive the link!

Gingerbread Tee

I whipped up this cute little tee for Lu this afternoon:


The ribbon accents weren't intentional. They were to cover up these:


HOLES!! I guess I had the tee pinched in the embroidery hoop, and this is where I screwed it in really snug. The sewing gremlin is going back and forth from my house to Shannon's and back to mine.

I kinda like the ribbons in the end, though. I used Steam a Seam to fuse them in place, and then straight stitched them to the tee. The gingerbread girl's bow is a removable pin for laundering.

You can find the adorable gingerbread applique machine embroidery design at Sewing For Sarah. It's a free download!

Happy Stitching!

Tickled Pink Temily

The bullions are done. They're not prize-worthy, but they are very pretty & finished...which is the important thing!


I used the Temily pattern (resized to a 10-12) from Australian Smocking & Embroidery issue #80. The smocking plate is "Tickled Pink" from AS&E #70.

I added pink Swarovski crystal accents between the roses & along the top row of baby waves.


Now it's on to construction!

Pre-Boos

Who else is starting to panic because it's almost Christmas!?!? Is anyone shopping yet?? Because geez I need to get my rear in gear if you know what I mean. There are several things I'd like to stitch as gifts, and especially little teacher gifts are nice & always seem to find me scrambling at the last minute. I should do those now.

First up tho is Halloween...I got in the bewitching spirit today by watching this:


...and reading my fall issue of Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion, which included all of these spectacularly spookful decorations!


I really do have an almost unhealthy love of this magazine. Even the ads were spectacular eye candy in this issue!

This adorable spider toy was posted over on Sew Forum using a free machine embroidery design...similar to the t@ggy toys that are so popular (with parents of babies AND the copyright police.) Isn't it the cutest thing? There are stops all around the circular body to tack down your ribbon or in this case rickrack. I've forgotten who adapted the design & posted this pic, but the design is a freebie for download in the free section!


Finally I have to leave you with this hallowed kitty shot...

Goodies...

Just a little shameless self-promotion!

The littlest fashionista....a halter & capri set:

A Halloween Hair Flower...


A gorgeous plummy Fall Hair Flower...



These 3 plus a few more yummy things can be found HERE.

Happy Weekend!

a.

Embroidered Ribbon Label Tutorial

In response to a bunch of questions I had about the labels & how to make them, I photo-journaled my label making this moring and thought I'd do a little tute for ya!

If you have an embroidery machine, you can make your own classy labels for a teeny tiny fraction of the price of woven labels. Just look at my snazzy new labels...


Materials:
*Tiny embroidery fonts & Designs: Mine are from Sew-N-2-U & Perfect Little Stitches.
*Satin Ribbon (make sure it's wide enough for your designs!) My ribbon is single-sided satin ribbon on a roll from Wal-Mart, in 1-1/4 inch width.
*Fusible Interfacing
*Sticky back water soluble stabilizer (Mine is a humongous roll from All Stitch.)
*Embroidery Machine & Threads

Directions:

Step 1: Cut ribbon to desired length (I started with about 30 inches). Stabilize your ribbon. It's too flimsy to withstand the embroidery designs without interfacing! I cut a strip of fusible interfacing the same width & length as my ribbon & fused with the iron.

Step 2: Sticky back water soluble stabilizer is the secret ingredient! Hoop the stabilizer with the paper side up (the sticky side).


Step 3: Using a large needle or pin, "score" a rectangle in the center of the hoop, approximately the same width as your ribbon, as below:


Step 4: Peel the scored paper away & remove. Now you're left with a little window of "sticky" stabilizer.


Step 5: Center your ribbon over this sticky window and smooth.


Step 6: Embroider your design. You will probably have to fiddle with your needle position. Most machines allow you to do this. I checked the first needle position, then moved "12 clicks" up for perfect placement.


Step 7: Trim around all sides of your embroidered ribbon, leaving a rectangular hole in your hooped stabilizer:


Step 8: Cut a new, larger than your hole, rectangle of stick back stabilizer. Flip your hoop over and apply this new piece over the hole. You can even use 2 pieces for more stability if you want.


Step 9: Now go back to Step 5 & repeat from there ! That's pretty much it!

Repeat these steps as many times as wanted! You can "patch" your hole in the stabilizer with another piece until your length of ribbon is completely embroidered.

When finished, trim your jump stitches from the front! (No need to trim back jump stitches, since they will never be exposed.)

LAST Step: Rinse water soluble stabilizer from ribbon, dry & press well with iron. Cut labels apart & enjoy!!