Sunday, October 12, 2008

Virgo Embroidery

This is my latest embroidery for my Tea Towel Tour swap on Craftster. Nannetta asked for a Zodiac/celestial theme towel and her sign is Virgo. This Virgo pattern was posted in the Flickr group Hoop Love, HERE.
Virgo Embroidery

People are doing some amazing, impressive things with their fill-in stitches this round of our swap. I hesitate to start filling in areas because once I get started doing that, I want to fill everything in and then I feel like I might as well have appliqued the design.

I decided to do a sort of a wood block look for her hair and outline her dress with a double line of chain stitches.

Virgo Embroidery

My next towel is a nautical/pin-up/tattoo theme. I think if I keep doing these swaps, I'm going to have to invest in a tattoo design book, because it really is a popular theme and I try to be careful about copyrights even though our swaps are all just personal use gift type exchanges. Pin-ups just seem to get more and more popular!

5 comments:

Glenda said...

I think I will stitch this design for myself. I don't generally like the pictures and symbols for Virgo, but this one is just lovely, especially the way you stitched her.

I love using seed stitch as a fill stitch -- it's not as tedious (to me) as satin stitch. I think chain stitch is a nice fill stitch too.

Don't forget about color-tinting! I hesitate to use it on anything that will be washed more than rarely, because crayon-tinting I did on some t's for my kiddo have completely faded after maybe a dozen washings (in cold water). I'm working on my last tea towel for TTT4 and it's a perfect design for color-tinting, so I'm going that route (the towel owner said the towel won't be used, so fading because of washing shouldn't be an issue!).

IamSusie said...

Glenda- This round we are seeing more crayon tinting and I really like that technique. I've used the Crayola fabric crayons before with good success. That brand is washable if used on synthetic fabric.

Rebel said...

That's gorgeous! I like the dress border, and the varigated green you used for the flower. Very nice work.

Patty said...

Wow! She looks fantastic! Your stitching is amazing.

Lily Boot said...

Susie - that's exquisite embroidery - the colours are beautiful and the stitching so even. I'm sighing with delight!