For a Fairy

I want to share this embroidery piece I finished at the beginning of January. I made it for a little girl who turned three and had a fairy woodland party.  Her family is one that I've become close with all thanks to my dear son and I'm so happy for these new connections.  So I wanted to make something for her room that she could enjoy it. I decided to stitch up the little angel from the Kurt Halsey pattern set from Sublime Stitching.

I left off the halo so I could make her more fairy-like and added a few of the flowers and stars from the pattern as well.  I'm so pleased with how it turned out.  So sweet and girly!

I stitched it on a floral fabric that I had on hand and situated the larger floral pattern along the bottom. The colors in the fabric were a great fit for the sweet design.  I chose to finish it in a hoop and added a few little beads to the ribbon at the top.  I think it's perfect for a little girl's bedroom.

It was also really nice to do some embroidery having been on a cross stitch kick lately.  I think it's nice to change things up from time to time and oh boy does embroidery take much less time than cross time! 


**Again, these photos are just a couple that I took on my phone.  I took some with my regular camera but not having a computer right now leaves me no way to offload them.  So for the time being, I'm stuck sharing phone pics.  :(

Halloween Countdown: Embroidered Ornaments

I'm back to share a couple of embroidered ornaments I made for the 13 Days swap. My partner has a Halloween tree so I wanted to make some ornaments for her.   I love making little embroidered ornaments, so that's what I decided to do.  I took a couple Sublime Stitching patterns and tweaked them to spook them up a bit.

I used one of the houses from this pattern set and turned into a haunted house.

I added a little ghost in the window.

Then I used a nesting doll from this pattern set and added spooky elements.

Like a little blood drip.

And a jack-o-lantern face.

I backed them both with Halloween fabric, stuffed them and added a bit of ribbon so they could hang on the tree.  I love how they turned out and it was fun thinking of ways to spookify the original patterns.   

Have you ever altered a pattern  to fit a theme or holiday?  

Dapper Fox Embroidery

I did another little swap with my lovely stitchy pals recently. This time around I was partnered up with the wonderful Bascom.  Through Pinterest, we share an adoration of foxes. I knew I wanted to stitch him a fox. I looked around for things, even tried to draw something myself but just wasn't liking it.  Then I remembered the Ryan Berkeley patterns for Sublime Stitching....with a dapper fox.  Bascom being ever the dapper fellow, I thought it would be a great pattern to stitch for him. 

I am very pleased with how it turned out. Love the bright orange and creating texture in his fur.  These really are great patterns. 

 

 

I can't wait to show you what Bascom made me!   Seriously, come back to see!

Til next time!

A fairy good day

I almost forgot to share my little fairy that I finished!  I stared this before I gave birth, even stitching some when I started laboring at home.  It helped to have something to focus on between the contractions.  I finished it during some spare free minutes after bringing the baby home.  

This is a Sublime Stitching pattern you can purchase here.  That's one sexy fairy if I do say so myself.

 I really wanted to play with color for this design.  I'm really pleased with the outcome.

  

I added  a few extras to the outfit and shoes to give it a bit more detail.

I love the fiery hair--what a vixen. 

I'm not sure what I'm going to start working on next.  I'm waiting on the next towel to arrive for the tea towel swap.  I'm also now THREE months behind on the Dessert of the Month cross stitches--so maybe I'll start one of those.  It's also getting close to Halloween so I'd love to do some spooky stitching.   I also want to start some small pieces for my own art. Ack--so many projects, so little time.  Now that I've gone back to work, I have even less time for creating but I'm going to fit it in where I can.  How big is your project list?

Miss Kitty's going to a party

This distinguished feline is Miss Kitty.  She's on her way to a fancy party. 

 This is another great Ryan Berkley pattern from Sublime Stitching.  You may remember her pal, Mr. Robin from this post.

 I wanted her to look like my Maggie so I stitched her up in gray.  This piece is mine all mine and now hanging beside my computer so I can look at it every day.

 I love her fancy flowers in her head and on her jacket.

 She's definitely ready for her close-up.

If you'd like to check out some of Ryan Berkley's illustrations, please go to the shop.  You can even find the original cat drawing that, I would assume to be the basis of the embroidery pattern.  It's really fun stuff.  (Also I'm pretty much in love with the Sea Otter print.  Other than cats, otters are my favorite animals!) 

Mr. Robin flys to Washington

Is it just me or has January flown by?!? I have been a busy little bee, working away on some things for my baby boy (oh and yeah--we found out it's a boy--eeek!) I decided to go with a woodland forest friends theme for the his little part of the world. Think raccoons, foxes, mushrooms etc. I think it's going to be super cute. Unfortunately we don't have the space to give him a full-on nursery, but he will have part of the spare room for now--he'll just have to share with the computer and my craft stuff. I'm pretty sure he won't mind--or really even know what's going on. But before I show you what I've been working on for the baby, I wanted to share this piece I stitched up for my sister's birthday. I've been wanting to do these patterns for so long now. They are the Ryan Berkeley transfers from Sublime Stitching.

  I think Mr. Robin looks very regal in his suit don't you? I really want him to have a name like Sir Earl Pennyweather.

What a fun design.  Now I really want to stitch up the others.  Miss Kitty is definitely calling my name----meow.  On another note I made it to the Sublime Stitching blog!  So exciting! 

Baby news: I'm 18 weeks now and the little bugger is squirming around!  We are working away on names--who knew it would be so hard to come up with something!

Hollow hearts and balloons

It's been H-O-T hot here in NC!  I've had to stay inside with the A/C and stitch--poor me.  So since I've been busy stitching I've got a finished embroidery to share.  I'm really loving stitching up these Sublime patterns on found linens.  I've got quite a series going now.  This is another Tara Mcpherson pattern.  (If you click that link you'll see my other Tara McPherson pattern being used on the SS site!--eek).  

The flowers and border were already stitched on the fabric and the crocheted border was already there, too. 

This pattern was really fun to stitch.  I chose fun colors and kept the stitches simple.  Now--I just have to decide what to stitch next!   Although I really should paint some...I'm such a procrastinator when it comes to my paintings. 

Off to a good start

I've started stitching up some things for the holidays already. I'm trying not to get so behind as I did last year. I pretty much left myself a week for gifts last year because of a huge Christmas swap I decided to do------which I vowed to never do again. So hopefully things will not be so bad this year. I don't really know who I'm giving these to quite yet, I just ironed on a bunch of designs I've been wanting to stitch for a while. These will most likely be made into ornaments because they're on the smaller side. So here's what I've go so far.

These great Julie West designs from Sublime Stitching that I've been wanting to do.

This one looked like a tree to me so I gave it a trunk.


I also did a couple things from the Black Apple patterns so. I love these patterns so much. Check out the Black Apple blog also for more great art from Emily Martin. She's really fantastic.

Cute hedgehog.

Bunny wearing a striped dress.

Ghostie.
Then a couple things from a huge Aunt Martha's holiday pattern set. There are some really great things in the set from Thanksgiving to Christmas and some really super cute designs too. I'll be using a lot of patterns from this.

I mean how sweet is this little angel. I just had to use cotton candy colored thread for this. Too sweet.

And this cute caroler! Seriously... how sweet is he? My french knots still aren't perfect but I think they're about as good as they're gonna get. I would strongly recommend this transfer set if you want cute Christmas designs. I really feel like I'm making good time so far. I have TONS more to do of course. I'm really trying not to buy much at all for the holidays this year. I'm trying to save for a wedding you know? Plus I have great family and friends that appreciate handmade gifts. Off to stitch some more!

Spooky

Continuing to catch up on my crafting goodies I've made I thought I'd post some Halloween things I've done. I love Halloween and wanted to spook our place up a bit. There's only so much you can living in an apartment. I have no yard to fill with things or anything like that but I've got lights and some awesome bloody hand prints in my windows. I thought my kitchen could definitely use a Halloween towel so I put this together using three Sublime Stitching patterns: Vital Organs, Zombies and Monsters and Gothic Grandeur.

Spooky huh? Here's some close-ups.

Creepy kitty is from the Zombies and Monsters patterns and the rest is from Gothic Grandeur.

Zombie #1

Zombie #2

Creepy corner using Gothic Grandeur patterns.

Other creepy corner using Gothic Grandeur and Vital Organs patterns. I like how it all came together and the zombies are really cool.

Then I did these patterns that I've been wanting to do for a while now from this site. They are free and super cute! There's............

.............scary bunny ghost................

...........vant to suck your blood bunny...................

...........bony bunny...........................and.............

...probably my favorite..........Frankenbunny. I couldn't decide what I wanted to do with them so just made them into little hanging ornaments---felt on the back and some Halloween ribbon.

Pretty cute if I may say so. Happy Halloween!