Kara's Fights with Fabric

Alright, I've lost interest in the kits. Not feeling it... Oh! New project for Emerson that's just a 2in x 2in piece? Perfect! They are organizing a cool project where people can embroider one rose in this style with the specific colors, but any stitches you want! And then all the roses will be added to a cloak for Emerson. So I vaguely trace the design onto white linen directly with a slightly metallic colored pencil. Why did I use metallic? It was around and would be covered.  I decided to start with the green, and use mostly stem stitch.  For yellow, I loved the look of a smooth satin stitch throughout the whole rose. Then a verified bushel of red french knots for the center.  Now for the outline and details. I decided to use the stem stitch to outline the outside border of the rose, and I think its a bit messy. I'd probably chose a neater stitch like the backstitch and do them smaller to smooth it out.  The internal lines are a bit messy, but it's a rose so we ca...

 Okay! I've decided I like this embroidery thing. New kit new me. 😂 For this one, I saw this adorable mushroom house on black fabric.  I wanted to see how well the embroidery looks on the darker fabric and whether doing the actual embroidery is any harder.  1. I love bright colors on dark fabric. It makes the colors pop so well. 2. Dark fabric makes it easier to embroider. You can clearly see where your needle is coming up and how it with look with the rest of it.  I am in love.  This piece has instructions and there weren't any new stitches that I had to learn. So I tried to focus on making the layers look cohesive and working on color blending in the stalk of the mushroom. I played with the direction of the stitches in order to get the long and short stitches smooth, and I think it worked? I really like the effect from twisting the edges of the stalk. Lastly, the white French knots. I specifically tried to vary the sizes of the knots so that it gave the piece...

Alrighty! I am feeling empowered by my first two kits and I feel up to trying out a custom design on some scrap linen I had lying around.  I found out about Stick N Stitch Self Adhesive Wash Away Stabilizer and I wanted to try it out for myself. This is a one-side sticky fabric that will resolve in water. You can use a regular printer to print your design directly onto the sticky fabric. I decided to pick a panel from the series One Piece that featured the characters Zoro and Chopper. (One Piece, Ch. 628) It took a few tries for me to get the sizing/scale what I wanted, but the printer worked great! Since this has no stitch instructions, I wanted to try all black, single thread stitches. I hadn't worked much with single thread, and wanted to try it out.  Starting with a freshly learned backstitch around the border, I quickly found that I hated the imperfections I could easily see with the single thread stitches. I pushed on.   I used mostly backstitch and satin stitch to ...

Alright, second embroidery project. New kit, similar scenario. I'm excited to make a bee.  I've since watched a few "Top Tips for Embroidery Beginners", I've learned a few best practices, including doing the stitches "on top" last, when they overlap and how to easily knot the stitches at the end.  First some stems and leaves.  In the instructions, the leaves each have either darker or lighter lines to highlight the stem of the leaf. After doing it once on the leaves at the left, I decided I liked the look of the plain leaves better.  The pink and yellow flowers introduce the "Long and short" stitch which I didn't really get how to quite overlap the colors.  Yay! Bee time! I start with the wings and I have the bravery to imagine an intricate and delicate bee's wings that clearly show the the texture of them.  This does not go as planned.  Youtube "How to undo stitches?"  This is fine, it's a learning experience.  I decide s...

 Background: This is my first time trying embroidery. I received a kit from Amazon for Christmas and I wanted to try it out.  While there are instructions on what stitch to do where, the "how to do this stitch" was not very helpful. I'd prefer a visual that moves, so I can see how the stitching works.  I started with the stems. My technique? YouTube "How to split embroidery strands?" YouTube "How to thread embroidery needle" YouTube "How to start a stitch?" YouTube "How to do stem stitch?" YouTube "How to finish a stitch embroidery" Rinse and repeat for each section, using the included instructions for what stitches and thread colors to use.  The finished piece ends up with many different kinds of stitches, including satin, stem, leaf, French knot, and Rose. I submitted the finished piece at my first Athena's Thimble meeting for Free Embroidery and received a competency in it.  Overall great experience and has me excit...