Family Feature Friday! #1

Hi everyone!  Thanks for tuning in to this week's Adventures in Embroidery post!  This week, I'm going to do something a little different.  It's always so neat to find new ways to connect with family members, and embroidery has really opened up a new avenue for me to do that!  I've really enjoyed being able to talk embroidery with different family members!  My Granny Sharon (my grandmother) recently gave me some of my Mamaw's (my great-grandmother) embroidery work, so I thought it would be fun to share her work with you!

All of the pieces that I'll be sharing today are table runners - some longer, some shorter - but all beautiful! I love all of the floral motifs and looking at the different stitches that my Mamaw used.  In the piece pictured above, she used mostly blanket stitch.  I haven't tried this stitch out before, but I really like the way it creates such clean lines.

As you can probably tell from just looking at this picture, Mamaw used cross stitches to create the roses and leaves and stem stitch for the stems.  The large size of the cross stitches really give this piece some fun character.  Something not pictured here on the other side of this piece (I've got it folded in half to better fit in the frame) is that it looks like she ran out of the brown thread she was using for the stems, so she switched to green for the last two flowers!  It's probably my favorite part of this table runner.  It reminds me that as perfect as my Mamaw is, even she had to improvise sometimes, and that it's okay to change things up unexpectedly in art!  With embroidery (and with a lot of other things in my life!), I sometimes find myself getting caught up with making sure everything is exactly the way it is *supposed* to be.  But as I get older, and get more into artsy things, I have started to realize that sometimes, you just have to go with the flow of things - because nothing is perfect!

This next piece is really fun because upon closer inspection, I can see where Mamaw got a little creative with her stitches! There are places with some random satin stitches thrown in among the stem stitches.  I wonder what she was thinking when she did that - I should ask her the next time I see her!  I also love how flowy and natural the flowers look.  The little bouquets in the middle remind me of how my wedding bouquet looked - wild and naturally beautiful.

This last piece looks like she definitely had some experience under her belt when she made this! Lots of color, lots of detail, and super clean lines!  There are so many different stitches in this: long and short, stem, straight, running, lazy daisy, satin, and french knots! Pretty much all of the stitches I know combined seamlessly into one gorgeous piece!  I love the way the red of the poppy just *pops* off of the fabric (I know, so corny - I couldn't help myself!).  

I hope you enjoyed this stroll down memory lane with me!  I sure had fun!  I was thinking - since I have so many women in my family that have various embroidery and embroidery-related skills - I might make this a periodic installment here on Adventures in Embroidery!  What better way to get inspiration than from the people that you love the most?  Let me know what you think down in the comments!

I hope you all have a splendid week! See you next time!

Hansel and Gretel Part 2.5

Hello! And welcome to the second part of Part 2 of our Hansel and Gretel Storybook Series!  This week, I'll show you the finished product of the second panel of four.  Side story: our apartment complex has changed internet providers and we have been without internet at home for this whole week.  So currently, I'm sitting at Starbucks!  Of course, I'm not complaining - I get Starbucks out of the deal!

Here is the final product!  I swapped out some stitches to fit the scale of this project, and to give me a little more practice on different stitches.  Most of the stitches that the author calls for in these pieces are Split Stitch.  And while I've gotten better at these stitches just from doing this project, I'm still not quite proficient enough to work them around small curved lines.  Instead, I used Stem Stitches and Outline Stitches on the rounded or curved areas of the piece.  (For those of you who aren't familiar with all of the different types of stitches - Stem and Outline stitch are the same stitch, but worked in the opposite direction.)  I've found Stem and Outline stitches to be my favorite (so far) when working with curved lines.  I also learned and used the Scallop Stitch on this piece for the embellishments on the edge of the house.  It was fun to learn a new stitch!  Even if it's mainly a variation of the Lazy Daisy Stitch.

I also really noticed a BIG difference in my stitching from the first panel and this one.  Part of it, I'm sure, has to do with that I switched from using three strands of floss to two.  This makes my lines a lot smaller, which makes the whole piece look cleaner overall.  However, I can tell I'm getting better already, which is really exciting!  That's something that I really like about doing embroidery - It's easy to see your progress and improvements over the course of learning this skill.  Here's a side-by-side comparison of the two panels I've done so far!

I'm almost out of this red floss that I've been using, so I think that for the next panel I'll be switching to Pearl Cotton.  It'll be a new experience - I've only used embroidery floss so far!  Thanks for tuning in to this installment of Adventures in Embroidery!  I'm glad you're along for the ride!  Next time, I'll be posting part three of four in the Hansel and Gretel Story!

Hansel and Gretel Part 2.0

Hello everyone!

First off, I want to apologize for taking so long to get this posted.  Things have been a little hectic around here with a new job in the mix for me - which is very exciting, but it does give me less time to devote to my blogs.  However, I've got some ideas that will help me get better at time management so I can keep up with the blogs and the new job!

Secondly, I apologize for not having a completed work this week!  So this will be a shorter post, as I am only about 1/3 of the way through this piece.

This week (and also the next post) I'm working on the second of the four Hansel and Gretel Storybook Panels that I started in my last post.  These adorable pieces are by Aimee Ray and can be found in her Doodle Stitching: Embroidery & Beyond book.  I also follow her on Instagram, and I love seeing what she has created!  Her creations are always so cute and fun!

Aimee's Book

The set of four storybook panels

This week I'm working on the witch's gingerbread house!  I love the details of the candy canes and lollipops lining the walk up to the front door!

Like I mentioned above, I'm only about 1/3 of the way through.  However, I've already noticed some improvement from my last panel in my split stitch technique!  It's still not my favorite stitch, but I've come a long way in my consistency with that type of stitch.  I think that's part of why it is taking me so much longer on this panel than the last - I'm being a lot more mindful of the technique of the split stitch than I was previously and it has slowed me down some.  On the other hand, I'm really pleased with how the stitches look! Good technique clearly goes a long way in making something like this!

I also wanted to take a moment to talk about the back of the piece.  In an article I was reading by another stitcher, she talked about how her grandmother always told her that the back of a piece of embroidery should be as beautiful as the front.  Now, of course it's not going to look the same, but it stuck with me that a sign of good embroidery is how neat the back of the piece looks.  This is especially important when you are working with thin material like I have been using.  It would take away from the picture if you could see a bunch of red lines behind the material.  All this to say, I have been really pleased with what the back of my stitching looks like this time!  Just another sign to myself that I'm actually improving!  

One thing I've been struggling with lately is that my floss will get tangled several times while I'm working.  You can see a big knot that I got frustrated with in the bottom right corner in the picture above.  If you've experienced this before and know a good way to prevent this or easily untangle the thread - please leave a comment below!  My trick lately has just been to *cut* my losses and just start a new thread (see what I did there? Oh, I love puns!).

Anyway, until next time - thanks for joining me on these Adventures in Embroidery!!

Hansel and Gretel Part 1

Hello! And welcome to the first installment of Adventures in Embroidery!  I'm so excited to be kicking off this blog today!  For my first piece I'm going to start with a little bit of red work from Aimee Ray's Doodle Stitching: Embroidery & Beyond.  This book is a really great resource for new stitchers, or if you just want some fun and cute new patterns to follow!  Most of the designs I post here will probably come from that book until I get through them all!  I've set up links above so you can go check out her blog and her Etsy store!

This is the first panel in a set of four depicting the story of Hansel and Gretel.  It took me about 4.5 hours to complete this first panel.  I also changed a few things here and there from the directions in the book, just to suit my skill level and constraints.  The picture below shows just one of the many reasons why I really enjoy this book!  She includes both a color picture of the design with the stitches labeled and a black and white copy for you to copy the pattern from!  In the book it suggests that you enlarge the patterns 220%, but I just used them as they are in the book.  I don't have access to a printer at home, so I do all of my printing at the UPS store.  I haven't figured out how I can enlarge things with them yet, and I don't think I could convince them to print onto transfer paper or canvas!

I just transferred the pattern straight onto my fabric with a pencil.  Mostly, I'm not a fan of the fabric I used for this design. The thinness of the fabric leads to a lot of problems while stitching: it doesn't stay taut for long in the hoop, it wrinkles easily, and the weave is so loose that sometimes my stitches leave holes in the fabric (maybe that's my fault, though?).  However, when it comes to transferring patterns onto the fabric, it's great!  I don't have to use a light desk or tape anything to windows!

I'll definitely be taking an iron to the fabric first on the next panel!

Stitches used:

• Split stitch
• French knot
• Lazy daisy
• Strait stitch/Running stitch

Changes I made to the instructions:

• I switched the satin stitch for French knots in the round details on Gretel's outfit. Because I didn't enlarge the pattern, there wasn't room for satin stitches to look like circles.
• I ran out of pink floss, so there are a few places that call for pink in the pattern that are red on mine.
• A few of the smaller details got lost in the smallness of my work.  If I had enlarged the pattern, I would have been able to correctly follow the directions on all of the small details.

The next three posts will be the remaining panels of the story.  I'm looking forward to working on my split stitch more!  I didn't have a lot of experience in that stitch before this piece, and I had a hard time working it around curves, but I'm going to try smaller stitches next time when I get to a curvy part of the pattern.  That seemed to work well when I was working on Gretel's hat and hair.

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out!  Some of the stitches are crooked, and I can definitely pick out some mistakes, but that's what Adventures in Embroidery is all about!  I'm learning from my mistakes, getting lots of practice, and improving my skills with every stitch I make! I can't wait to get started on the other panels and see how they turn out!

Thanks for tuning in!  It's great to have you along for the ride on my Adventures in Embroidery!

Welcome!

Hi! Welcome to "Adventures in Embroidery" - a bi-weekly blog about hand embroidery!  This is the first post in a year-long adventure in boosting my stitching skills and blogging!  Today, I'll start with a Q&A style introduction.  The real content will start Tuesday, January 12!

Where does the name "Adventures in Embroidery" come from?

In my hometown there was a teacher's supply store called Adventures in Learning.  When I was little, my mom would take me in there so she could get stuff for her classroom, but all I cared about were the cool puzzles and magnetic wooden train set they had for me to play with! (And, yes, of course it was for me. Kid Logic.)  As I got older, Adventures became less of a playground and more of a place of comfort and nostalgia.  The name stuck with me throughout the years, so when I began toying with the idea of an embroidery blog the name felt like a natural choice.  For me it was the perfect blend of nostalgia for days past and the excitement of the promise of adventures!

Who are you? And why hand embroidery?

My name is Morgan, and this (along with my floral blog) is my first adventure in blogging!  I currently live in Texas with my wonderful husband (who wants to be known as "Permanent Roommate" or "PR").  I started to get into embroidery a few years ago after I rediscovered a sampler kit that my Grandma gave me many years ago.  I had given up on it as a kid because I didn't have the patience for it.  Also, it looked awful because I didn't read the directions, and I didn't like to be bad at anything (jeez, what a brat... yeah, I know).  Fast forward to when I lived in Delaware and was too cheap to afford a TV and was convinced I could make it without one.  After re-reading my entire book collection, I got bored and decided to take a look at my old embroidery kit.  Y'all.  It was bad.  I wish I had taken a picture of how hilariously horrendous those ten year old stitches were.  So, I ripped them all out and started over.  Lo and behold, when you actually read the directions on something, you can easily learn a new skill!  And I was hooked!

The finished sampler that my Grandma gave me.

So what's the point of this blog?

I'm starting this blog for a couple of reasons:

1. It gives me a way to consistently and purposefully work on my embroidery.  Since PR and I got married, I've been needing a hobby to keep me busy while he's at work.  I have also discovered that I'm not that great at motivating myself to work on things and I get sucked into the Internet Machine all too easily.  With a regular blog posts scheduled, I'm holding myself more accountable to really working on this skill.  Plus, it's fun!
2. It also gives me a chance to develop my writing skills.  If you would have told me in fourth grade that I was going to start blogging in my twenties, I would have laughed at you (and also would have been very confused because blogging wasn't a thing back then).  However, in the last few years, I've really come to enjoy writing and I'd like to get better at it!  Blogging on a schedule gives me practice!

What can I expect from this blog?

I'll be posting on this blog every other Tuesday.  That means two posts per month (sometimes three - yay bonus posts!).  As of right now, I don't have a particular theme in mind.  I'll try to have a new finished product for every post, but if I'm working on something big it could get split up.  They probably won't be original designs, but I'll make sure to link back to the original artist so you can get even more information on their work!  I have a feeling that this blog will be evolving over time once I get my feet wet in all of this.  I'm fairly new to embroidery, so I don't know what styles or stitches I like yet!  But I do know that in each post I'll include lists of all the materials, pictures of my progress and final product, and a link to where you can find the patterns for the designs.

"Why only bi-weekly posts?" you may ask.  Well, as I shamelessly mentioned earlier, I'm also currently working on another blog.  I'll be posting about flowers over there on the weeks I'm not posting here.  This schedule gives me two weeks to develop the content for each blog.  

Phew! That was a lot!

Yeah, I know. I'm sure the rest of my posts won't be this long or wordy, and they will definitely include more pictures!  I'm super excited about this year's adventure and I'm so glad to have you along for the ride!

P.S. If you happen to be into flowers, too, check out my other blog "Floriography"!  This will most likely be the only time I cross-reference my two blogs on each other.  Also, this will definitely be the only time my posts on each blog are extremely similar, I promise!