Welcome to Wendy from Thimblenest!

I'm very pleased and excited to say welcome to today's newest author on the blog: Wendy from Thimblenest! If you've visited her blog before, you'll know it's a place to find inspiring tutorials, free patterns, and tons of inspiration.

One of my recent faves is Wendy's gorgeous free pattern that I find so inspiring- Train your eyes to see the light:

We are beyond lucky to have Wendy blogging tutorials every other Thursday with us - so stay tuned for a fabulous Thimblenest Thursday!

Studio MME West Coast Love Book Review

I am lucky enough to review the latest e-book from Studio MME, West Coast Love. I have always been a huge fan of her patterns and her new e-book does not disappoint. Living in the Pacific Northwest this book has special meaning to me. The above pattern is one of the bridges from my hometown of Portland. From California and up the coast to Washington, Studio MME covers every monument that is important to us west coasters. Even though the book focuses on the west coast, you don't have to be from that area to enjoy it. The book, which can be purchased from her website, Studio MME, is filled with landmarks that everyone will recognize and a few that might surprise you. It is the perfect mix of history, geography and embroidery. 

One thing that I loved about the patterns in this book is that I was able to choose what format I wanted them in. I could print it out to trace, print it out to transfer and print out the color version for help with picking the best floss. She also offers a quick stitching lesson and how to finish your amazing project. This book is well worth the cash! 

Because Studio MME is so dang awesome (and she is-seriously, super duper nice and sweet!)she is offering a little sample from her book. This Steller's Jay is a perfect example of what you will find in her e-book. Fly over to her website and pick up your copy of West Coast Love. You can thank me later. 

*Thanks Megan for giving me a chance to review this e-book, it was amazing and so are you! 

You Inspire Me, Free pattern and Guest tutorial

Hello all, I have a wonderful free embroidery pattern and guest tutorial to share with you today! Ortal wrote to us and asked if we'd like to share her work, and we were delighted to, it is just gorgeous!

Download: Free pattern | Stitch guide

 

I have made this embroidery as a gift to a close friend, Esti.
Esti, truly a positive thinker, is quite the opposite of me :). The sentence in the embroidery came to me after a meeting with her, expressing what she makes me feel.

I'm attaching the free pattern for personal use.
Find those who inspire you...

I have also prepared a tutorial for transferring patterns to fabric using a Laser printer and freezer paper below.

How to transfer the pattern to your fabric:

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Feel free to contact me with questions:

beautifulground1 AT gmail DOT com

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Thank you so much, Ortal, for sharing your wonderful pattern and tutorial with our readers!

Guest Tutorial: Paris and Poodles, an Embroidered Affair

I'd like you all to meet Cassie, who we are lucky to have here doing a special guest post! I was super-impressed by her hand-embroidered Sailor Girl skirt and her Cowgirl skirt.

I love that Cassie embroiders on clothes, and her adorable vintage style. Today Cassie is sharing 2 of her most recent embroidered wardrobe pieces with us, as well as her doodles, if you'd like to stitch them, too! 

Everyone, meet Cassie! :)




I have this habit of getting on a kick. If it’s a favorite CD, I will wear that thing out, memorizing all the songs and working out all the dance moves. In my head, of course. I have the same addictive personality when it comes to candy. And coffee drinks. And crafts. Oh, and, strangely, wearing a bumpit countless days in a row. But I digress.


So my addictive habit led me down what I call the Paris and Poodles Path. It began with this oh-so-short thrifted dress (can I get an ohhh-lala?). I love breathing new life into thrift shop garb and this dress was just asking for a redo.

I began by letting out the hem and removing the pockets. I found this formerly-a-curtain vintage floral fabric in my stash and decided it would look lovely at the bottom of my dress. I had this idea that I wanted it to look like I was walking through a flower garden. Or being eaten alive by vintage fabric. Which, with my hoarder ways, the latter is more likely the case.

Before adding the vintage fabric to the skirt, I hemmed it and created a circle of fabric that was the same circumference as the bottom of the dress. Then I pinned it to the dress and applique stitched around the edge of the flowers. Once that was complete, I had the super duper fun pleasure of trimming all of the excess fabric off the top. I managed to cut into the skirt accidentally only once... which I promptly patched after saying a few naughty words and throwing a couple of things.

My favorite part was embroidering the Eiffel Tower. I began by drawing the tower out
and tracing that drawing onto the dress with a white pencil. I used thick embroidery floss for the outline of the tower and two strands of floss for the detailing. Once complete, I channeled my Parisian habit to French Poodles…

This prissy pooch actually took longer to embroider because of the size. She’s very small and detailed. I decided to use just one strand of floss and the tiniest of stitches for this embroidery.

The inspiration for the poodle actually came courtesy of Elvis Presley’s mother Gladys. I snapped this photo of the wallpaper from her bathroom on a recent trip to Graceland.

To Parisian-ize my poodle, I added the beret. And the hoity toity attitude.

I sewed the dress from a vintage 1960’s pattern including some of the most adorable Tammis Keefe fabric. I’d like to be able to say I’ve moved on from Paris and Poodles but I’m currently embroidering the Eiffel Tower onto a pair of shoes and whipping up another French-themed dress. See, I told you I have a problem. And until they make meds to cure this kind of crazy, you can see more of creations on my blog: cassiestephens.blogspot.com, if you like. Au revoir!

Native American Inspiration

One month ago I visited a Navajo reservation to help my sister with a ladies craft class. Each year she returns to a small one-room church with a group that does a variety of service projects like painting, re-roofing, and re-tiling as well as organizing a Bible school and sports camp.

Before we left, I found myself suffering from jitters - I'm shy, and although I enjoy sharing my love of crafting, I had no idea what it would be like, and how I would cope without my morning coffee on schedule, limited access to plumbing, no bed, and no air conditioning in 100+ degree desert temperatures. Would I be crabby? (yes) Would I accidentally curse in front of the children? (no) Would I smell bad? (sometimes) Important considerations, all. ;)

To alleviate my jitters, I grabbed a handful of floss, and a wonderful alphabet from the 1973 Handbook of Lettering for Stitchers by Elsie Svennas, and began adapting an alphabet to take with me.

Download the alphabet

The original alphabet has oodles of lazy daisy stitches, but I thought they'd be intimidating for beginners, so I traced the letter shapes and added small feather-like hashes in contrasting colors. I call it a feather-stitch alphabet, but FYI, it's not a real feather-stitch. :)

I had no idea how relaxing it would be to stitch this simple alphabet! I chose 7 neutral, lovely colors that reminded me of the desert, and brought it with me as inspiration.

From left to right, in DMC: 946, 611, 954, 834, 3824, 832, and 3853.

Now, on to some photos from the ladies craft class... We met only for a short time each day, so I was only able to snap in-progress shots. They took their projects home to finish or would work on their favorites each day - I so wish I had finished pics to show you, but this gives you a taste of the stitching we did.

I had tons of gorgeous floss a wonderful person sent me years ago -after the class, we asked the ladies to take it home with them. I loved that I was able to pass on the generosity of one lovely person to these talented ladies.

For weeks, I'd sat in front of my television, cutting out felt flower shapes from 2 free Purl Bee templates, found here and here, to use in our crafts.

I loved how much fun everyone had incorporating these bright, colorful shapes in their projects:

I loved the creative way the ladies incorporated traditional Navajo designs in all of their projects, always making them their own. This woman is also a talented weaver, by the way:

I fell in love with this stitcher - each project we tried, she gave it her all and worked with patience, sweetness, and creativity:

More of her impossibly tiny stitches:

Every person I met was very gifted and creative, and would use projects as a springboard for incredibly detailed, beautiful work. I know I will carry the memory of their creativity and skill with me as an inspiration to make my work my own.


Lastly, how can I possibly summarize the beauty of the desert? I just can't. You have to see it. My pictures only sort of help. I warn you that you must see it yourself.

Hope you enjoyed a little bit of Native American inspiration!

Kitschy Digitals.... Needlework!

Hey guys! Have you ever paid a visit to Kitschy Digitals? If so, have you dropped by the Needlework Patterns section? It is to die for! I pretty much paged through every link, mumbling to myself, "I'd stitch that," "Hey, I'd stitch that," and "Hey! I'd stitch that!"



In addition to all the patterns for sale by designers like The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery, Wee Little Stitches, Cate Anevski, Kate Gabrielle, Lucky Jackson, Wild Olive, and Wendi Gratz, there are many lovely freebies as well, like that cross stitch flower totem above by JuneCraft, that is just begging to be stitched up.

If that isn't enough to get you to sneak a peek, Danielle is offering a special discount to all Feeling Stitchy readers - get 15% off with the code: FeelingStitchy15. Thanks Danielle, and congrats on the beautiful store!

Patterns: Corgis and Keys

Hi guys - popping in for Jo today to share 2 free patterns!

When the Cross Stitcher emailed me about their free Corgi cross stitch patterns, I had to let out an involuntary "eep!" They are pretty incredibly adorable. You can pick up a free download over at The Making Spot, which includes 4 adorable Corgi variations, festooned with Union Jack bandanas or sporting a simple collar.

They've made their Corgis into fridge magnets, but I thought they'd look just as adorable in a hoop, so I set to work immediately on my own corgi. I plan to give him a little friend on the left and give the hoop to someone who really loves Corgis. :)



Get the Free Pattern


Another freebie this week comes from Ewenique, who was inspired by the three gorgeous keys by What Delilah Did that she recently stitched. After finishing the three, she wanted another key and took to MatLab to create one:


She's sharing the free pattern on her blog: Get the Free Pattern

Making Spot Guest Post: Free Blackwork Pattern

Care to try your hand at blackwork? Well, we have a wonderful guest post today with a free pattern, courtesy of the wonderful folks at The Making Spot. Read on to learn more about blackwork! :)



Hey there! My name's Zoe and I'm visiting Feeling Stitchy today with a little guest post. I edit a craftilicious website called The Making Spot - filled with all sorts of patterns and tutorials for stitching and knitting. Today I'm sharing a free blackwork squares pattern, especially for Feeling Stitchy.



One of the reasons I love blackwork is the simplicity of the patterns, and the way it never dates. This section is a taster of a larger Blackwork sampler - part of our vintage patterns series. I thought it would be fun to bring this small section to try as a freebie. The other great thing about blackwork is it's inexpensive - all you need to get started is some fabric, a tapestry needle and black thread. We've used 16 count aida, as the holes make it easy to mark out your stitches, but blackwork looks especially lovely stitched on linen too.

You can download the free blackwork squares pattern here.

All of the stitches are made using simple backstitch - if you've never tried it before, check out our Easy Guide to Backstitch. Stitch just the one part or a few. The beauty of blackwork is, it doesn't matter if you've never picked up a needle or thread before!
Enjoy!
Zoe

May Stitch-Along: Week 1

Happy May Day, everyone!  As we kick of the start of the new month, we also kick off a new stitch-along here at Feeling Stitchy.  I'm excited to share an original embroidery pattern by June Jessie, a very talented artist and embroidery designer also known as isewcute on Flickr.

"A Little Curtsy Goes a Long Way" is a precious little pattern that reminds us all not to forget our manners.  This pattern was originally published in Fat Quarterly, the popular e-zine for the modern quilting and crafting community.  We're so excited that both June and the Fat Quarterly team are happily making this pattern available for all Feeling Stitchy readers.

Click on the image above to access the pattern in Flickr, where you can download and print it in a variety of sizes.

While this pattern would look adorable simply framed in a hoop for hanging, I also can't help but think of its many other possibilities -- imagine it stitched onto a little girl's skirt, a tote bag for carrying ballet slippers, a nursery pillow, or a doll quilt.  Let's challenge ourselves this month to not only stitch the pattern up, but to use it in a finished product.  What do you have in mind?

Don't forget to tag your photos MayStitchalong2012 and add them to the Embroidery group over on Flickr.  In-progress shots are OK!  We'd love to see them, and I'll be featuring your photos throughout the month.

To see more of June's original embroidery patterns, be sure to check out her Etsy shop.  Now let's get stitching!

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About the artist


We are so pleased to offer this adorable hand embroidery pattern designed by June Jessie, aka isewcute to her Flickr and Craftster friends. June is a prolific crafter, embroidery artist, and jewelry designer. Be sure to visit June's Etsy shop where she not only sells the 'cutest' resin jewelry, but also some of the most amazing original hand embroidery designs we've seen. June even offers custom listings where she'll recreate any photo into a useable pattern for you to stitch up! June welcomes custom requests and guarantees that her customers will be pleased with the results.


June also blogs at isewcute.blogspot.com, where she chronicles her other crafty pursuits, from kids' crafts to cooking recipes. And when she's not on Crafster, you're sure to find her spreading the good word about the platform -- she's a major Craftster fan!


You can find June and her awesome handmade goods in one of her many online outlets.
Blog: isewcute.blogspot.com/
Etsy: www.etsy.com/shop/isewcute

Beeton's Book of Needlework: 154. Sandwich Case Pt. 3

Hullo! The chain-stitching is all done and I have started on the Overcast Stitch. It's my first time to do this stitch to tell you honestly, and as you can see, the lower part of my B came out a little wonky. Oopps.  Otherwise, it was fairly easy and pretty quick to do once the momentum got started.

I ended up using 4 strands for the laid threads and 3 strands for the threads that go over it. Black was the color suggested by Mrs. Beeton, and right she was as it does look lovely with the red, grey and ofcourse the steel beads! The beads are anchored down with 3 strands of black as well.

All in all, it is progressing smoothly and thank you for all your kind comments! Next up will be to finish it all neatly (I HOPE!) with some scallops and get this Sandwich Case all done and ready for use.

Download the PDF.

I hope these instructions can be understood! I will show the assembly on Part 4 so hopefully I can let this pattern make sense. For those who want to make this Sandwich Case, please visit: Part 1 and Part 2 and kindly read the comments as there are so many great inputs from our lovely readers (specially with regards to the "kid" material!). 

Have a wonderful week ahead everyone!