Happy Monday! The kids are home from school today so trying to continue with our tutorial is just not going to happen. Sorry. I'm feeling lucky to have gotten anything done today period.
This past year I have felt a surge of creativity coursing through my veins which is wonderful and energizing, but at times it can feel a bit crippling. I mean, what do you do when you have all of these fun ideas and just no time to execute them? I love embroidery, but it is not always the fastest medium, particularly for someone like me who can get sucked into the details of portrait work wanting to perfect every strand of hair.
Not everyone has that problem. I know that some folks love to create, but require more help or structure. So in an effort to continue to create great things without letting my ideas get moldy, I'm going to be sharing my ideas so that other crafters, maybe someone like you, can have fun and enjoy them, too!
Last week I mentioned it in brief passing. With the launch of the new website I will also be selling some of my own original embroidery patterns. The ones I've been working on lately are a series of animal disease patterns including bird flu, chicken pox, monkey pox, goose bumps, elephantiasis, and mad cow disease. Too funny, right?!
Making the bird flu hoop was so much fun! As much fun as it would be to create ALL of the designs, it's just not something I have time for so why not make it something that everyone can enjoy. I hope to see them as something we can share here and on Instagram & Facebook as people complete them. After all, the great thing about embroidery patterns are that they are very open to interpretation. Many times, the stitches and the colors are completely up to the crafter allowing each of them to be different and unique.
I would love, LOVE, LOVE to hear what you would like to see for patterns. Funny sayings, portraits of celebrities or TV characters, animals, etc. Please feel free to share them here in the comments or email them to me at holeysocksart@gmail.com Send me you're ideas by February 1st and get a chance to win a .pdf pattern set for FREE! Ready... set... GO!
I think of this space often and always feel like I have so much to share, but then there are days like today where I sit down to write and am not sure what to say. So much of it gets shared via Facebook or Instagram, those immediate gratification platforms, that I feel mean making you sit through it all again. But then I remember that I'm not that cool and that many of you aren't following in ALL of those platforms and for the few that are then they either think I'm cool enough to hear it again or strong enough to suffer through it *wink*.
So here is what I've been up to the last few weeks:
I'm making my way through a compilation of poems arranged by Garrison Keillor called "Good Poems for Hard Times". It is an amazing compilation so far but what hooked me was the AMAZING intro written by Keillor. It's not often that I find myself highlighting in a book. Dog-earring pages? Absolutely. I'm totally guilty, but highlighting... almost never. There were at least a dozen spots that caught my eye and I go back to reread them often as I pick it up.
I've also finished "Pride & Prejudice". We will simply say that it wasn't my preferred type of read. Now I've moved onto "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hoessini. There is not enough time in the day that I can dedicate to this book to satiate my appetite.
I'm still doing kitchen yoga a few days per week and trying to get down to run and lift weights at the complex gym when I'm able as well as stay away from the scale. I'm feeling pretty good about myself!
Finished a kick ass custom order for a friend.
Creating my own custom embroidery patterns that will be for sale on the new website.
Did I say "new website"? Well, I'm planning to make the jump over to Wordpress. I'm feeling the limitations of Blogger and looking to make this space more functional and pretty. I'm working on it very part time and am being a bit of a perfectionist so it might be awhile, but here is a sneak peek.
So there you have it. I have a long weekend coming up with the kids so Makers Monday may be on hold depending on their attitudes *wink*. But, I hope to have some fun, fun pictures to share next week!
Today we are starting the firsts steps toward making our own hand embroidered portraits. But before we jump right in I want to make sure that you have the basics down. So let's get started.
Today we will be reviewing our basic outline stitches: Straight stitch, back stitch, stem stitch, and split stitch. If you know these four you can make just about anything.
You will notice on the photos that I drew myself a line using a fabric transfer marker. I find it makes things easier to see where I'm going and gives me one less thing to worry about.
There are several ways to start your thread which we can review another day, but for the purpose of learning feel free to simply knot it.
Straight Stitch (aka Running Stitch) Once you have your thread ready, start by pulling you needle through your fabric from back to front. Your knot will prevent you from pulling it all the way through.
Next, place your needle through the fabric about 1/8-1/4" (think grain of rice) down from where you started and pull the thread all the way through the back. Congrats! That's your first stitch.
You will keep repeating this series leaving each stitch about 1/8-1/4" from the last.
You want to try to keep your stitches of the same length and tension. It is handmade, after all, so there will be some variation. Don't beat yourself up about it. Here are some tricks I use sometimes:
Back Stitch: The back stitch is another simple stitch and one of my favorites for outlining faces. You can change the length of your stitches to easily alter the look and feel.
Back stitching starts the same as our straight stitch; we start by pulling our thread from the back up and go back down to make our first stitch. Again, we bring our needle through to the front about 1/8-1/4" down from where we left off. However, in stead of moving forward from that point, we actually go BACKWARD and place our needle in the last hole (#2). This joins the stitches to create a straight and solid line.
Stem Stitch Alright, here's where things get a little tricky. The stem stitch is a beautiful stitch that creates a slightly twisted or rope-like look adding variety and texture to your work. It's also a great stitch for organic and curvy lines as it can retain it's quality in even tight turns.
When completing stem stitch I HIGHLY encourage making a line to follow. It really makes things so much simpler. It starts similar to the straight and back stitches, but you want to work your downward stroke (#2) slightly to the left of the line. When you come back up you want to make sure to come up beside your last stitch about half way up the length (#3). You will then go back through about 1/8-1/4" down from the end of the last full stitch.
Traditionalists will tell you that there is a difference between stem stitch and outline stitch; stem stitch traveling from right to left as pictured below and outline working in the opposite direction. I you want to read more about that you can go HERE. Personally, I don't think much about it. Being right handed it seems to naturally feel right to me to work in this way. If nothing else, you want to make sure that you are working in the same direction throughout your piece. Corners can be difficult but there is a great YouTube video HERE if you would like.
Split Stitch The split stitch is a very simple yet elegant stitch. You will start the stitch just as you did in straight stitch (#1-2). For the 3rd stitch you will come up through your first stitch about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way from the bottom- just be consistent. Now complete that stitch (again, think grain of rice). Ta-da! Just keep going.
I prefer the look of 1/3 of the way from the bottom, but play around with it and see what you like.
In order: Straight stitch, Back stitch, Stem stitch, Split stitch
And that's it! You have the beginnings of a fun little sampler. Are you a better learner by video? Check out the video below or on YouTube HERE:
Want something more fun to practice on? I am including a free pattern download. It's a simple download as pictured. No need for instructions and the color choices are up to you. It will look pretty on either plain or patterned fabric.
You can choose to complete it as you wish but I would recommend trying stem stitch on the sun using straight stitch for the rays, split stitch on "damn you", and back stitch on "Monday". But feel free to change it up.
I'm giving it to you FREE, but would love that if you are pinning it or otherwise sharing it that you remember to credit me. It is not for commercial use. Also, it's a lot to ask, but I would LOVE to see your finished work! You can leave a pic in comments or tag me @holeysocksart on Facebook or Instagram. Enjoy!
