Beginnings, Part 2

Thanks to my friends and family for the positive feedback on my first post. You guys rock!

After my first tea towel, I figured I should get in a little more practice before attempting to make any gifts. (By this point, it was mid-October, and I already had a bunch of Christmas ideas.) I stitched a little butterfly from an Embroidery for Dummies kit. (Easy with the jokes! It was on super-duper sale!) I also ended up buying this Martha Stewart kit which has turned into my embroidery supplies bag. (UPDATE: Pictures below!)

It looked simple enough -- just stitch along the lines -- but the floss that was supposed to be included was missing from the package. I had to use my own, which wasn't a problem, but it was my first frustrating embroidery moment. The bag is also made of canvas, which is pretty thick and difficult to push a needle through. My fingers were pretty sore by the end of that adventure. However, I ended up with a cute little bag to hold my needle case and floss.

Then, I had a revelation. Having a small kit that could fit in my work bag meant that I could embroider ON THE TRAIN! This was huge news. For those of you who don't know, I commute every day from suburban Philadelphia to New York City. It's not as bad as most people expect, but since at least 2 1/2 hours of my day are spent on the train, I'm always looking for ways to keep myself occupied. I've gotten some funny looks from fellow commuters when I pull out my hoop, but it really does help to while away the hours. I usually just pray that no one sits immediately next to me, for fear of elbowing them or accidentally sticking them with a needle. (Lord knows I stick my own fingers enough!)

My first commuting project was an awesome peacock design from Jenny Hart's book:

It was an iron-on transfer, which worked like a charm. (And each transfer is good for multiple uses!) I had previously picked up some plain quilting-weight fabric quarters at Joann (on sale for 99 cents each!), so I embroidered on one of those. I chose jewel tone floss to match the decor of my bedroom. When I was finished, I put it in a frame I had purchased on sale at Target a year or two ago. I loved the raspberry color, but it was hard to find a regular picture that would look right in it. This seemed like a perfect match! I just wrapped the fabric around the edges of a piece of cardboard and taped the back. (Technically, if you want to preserve your embroider for posterity, you're supposed to avoid using tape or glue on the fabric, as it can age the fabric over time. This is just for me, though, so it didn't matter!)

The design required a few sequins, which were harder to find in a craft store than I had expected (you generally have to buy them in packs of 1000, and I only needed a handful), but I was able to get them in a little set of buttons and other potentially-useful doodads, so it worked out. Stitching them on was a cinch. I just used a piece of regular sewing thread and anchored each side down. And no, I didn't work with sequins on the train. I saved that part for home. (I'm still finding sequins in my couch!)

Next up was a framed embroidery for a friend's daughter's 2nd birthday. I used some designs from Aimee Ray's book:

I'm not crazy about the font. I used the one in the book, which is meant to look a little scribbly, but I think it actually looks a bit too childish. In future endeavors, I would opt for my own handwriting or a printout from MS Word. But this was quick to do and came out pretty cute overall. Here's a closeup:

[At this point, I should probably tell you that my embroidery and sewing pictures are pretty awful. My camera is about four years old and seems to have lost its oomph. (Umf? Oumf? You know what I mean...) Also, we have TERRIBLE lighting in our apartment. The only natural light comes through the French doors into the living room, which is blocked by a big tree. Lamps can only do so much! So, until I get a better camera and/or figure out the lighting situation, you will have to put up with some underwhelming pictures. My apologies!]

I mainly used back stitches, split stitches, satin stitches, and French knots on these. In fact, those are the stitches I almost always use. I find them to be the easiest to work with and the most adaptable to the shapes and designs I work on. I know a few fancier stitches, but sometimes I find that they aren't worth the effort that goes into them. Perhaps I just need some more practice, but these suit me for now.

Next up: My favorite embroidery I've done so far. (HINT: Geaux Tigers!)

A New Hobby

I recently started a new hobby that some people have been asking about, and I figured it wouldn't be a bad thing to have a record of all of the things I've been making. So, here goes...

The backstory: In early fall, I realized I was bored. I was spending an inordinate amount of time watching TV, and I felt the need to do something a little more productive with my free time. Throughout grade school and college, I spent most of my extracurricular life as a musician, but my work schedule doesn't really allow me the chance to play my clarinet or sing in the same way that I used to. I always enjoy reading, but as an editor, I read all day for work and sometimes I just need to turn off my mind. I also went through phases of being a gym rat (which is difficult to do when you get home from work at 8 pm) and researching my ancestry (you can only get so far when everyone in your family has last names like Murphy and Petersen), but those activities ended up dying out, too. I kept my eyes peeled for something new to take on, but nothing really sparked my interest.

Now, a friend of mine from high school, Lindsay, started a blog a while back that details her adventures in sewing, knitting, and embroidery. I always admired her dedication to her hobbies and enjoyed reading about them, but I never figured I'd be able to do that sort of thing myself. For starters, I'm not what you would call "domestic." I only know how to cook a handful of basic meals, loathe doing laundry, and really only clean when people are coming over. I'm also an impatient person by nature, so the thought of making a quilt or knitting a scarf seemed way too daunting. Despite my efforts to remain open-minded, I found it hard not to associate these hobbies with old biddies and the Amish. Lindsay always seemed to make really cool, useful things, but I just figured that was more her own style shining through. I doubted I would have the ingenuity or skill set to create the same kinds of things myself.

Then one day, Lindsay posted pictures of some awesome-looking tea towels she had embroidered with a link to the pattern. I clicked through to Sublime Stitching and discovered a whole world of modern craftiness - embroidery patterns with themes such as flappers, pirates, and sexy librarians. I was in love. After some more searching, I found several other contemporary-minded stitchers who were making some pretty fabulous things  - Polka & Bloom, Comfort Stitching, and Badbird, to name a few. I had no idea that there were so many crafty people around who had a design sense similar to my own.

So, I decided to give embroidery the old college try. I actually learned some embroidery basics as a kid, thanks to a constructivism-oriented 4th-grade teacher and some patient lessons from my best friend's mom. My own mother taught me how to hand-sew when I was very young, so I had an arsenal of basic stitches to work with. However, it had been years since I actually did anything with this knowledge, so for all intents and purposes, I was starting over.

Embroidery seemed like a good choice for a hobby, though. The supplies were relatively inexpensive, so if it didn't pan out, at least I wouldn't have spent too much on it. (This would go on to change in subsequent months!) I made a trip to the craft store to buy some basics, and I ordered a few patterns from Sublime Stitching. I ended up getting impatient for the patterns to arrive (surprise!) and perused the web for some free patterns. I found these cute Halloween bunnies. I slid the printout under a tea towel I had purchased for this very endeavor, traced the pattern onto the towel with a pencil (I didn't have anything as fancy as a transfer pen at that point), and began stitching away. Two days later, I ended up with my very first embroidered tea towel:

I was hooked. I could embroider while watching TV, and I found that it really helped me unwind when I got home from work. It was also great to have a hobby that had tangible results. I could actually make things that would be both pretty and useful. I kept finding all of these patterns I wanted to stitch and ideas for new ones wouldn't stop swirling around in my head.

I picked up a couple of books, Embroidered Effects by Jenny Hart (the founder of Sublime Stitching) and Doodle Stitching: The Motif Collection by Aimee Ray, to help me out with some embroidery basics, such as selecting embroidery-appropriate fabrics and practicing different kinds of stitches. (I really recommend both of those books for anyone looking to get started with embroidery! Jenny's book comes with a bunch of fun pattern transfers, and Aimee's comes with a disc of all of her patterns so you can arrange them and print them out on your own.) I was off to an awesome start, which would soon spiral out of control with an impulsive purchase of a sewing machine and a new-found obsession with fabric patterns. But I'll save that story for next time. :)

I'm not sure what this blog will turn into - how often I'll update it, what kinds of things will be on it, or even how long I'll stick with it. But there you have it. My first post. Thanks for reading!