Hoopla Swap 3

Check out my Craft Critique review of the terrific book Scandinavian Stitches by Kasja Wikman. The article ran a few weeks ago and I did all the crafting in a flurry before Christmas.The book is full of terrific seasonal projects. I highly recommend it.

I also recently did another Hoopla swap on Craftster. For this one, we needed to exchange a tiny 2 to 3 inch hoop motif. Because if the small size and because my partner, pugwash, mentioned him in her sign up information, I stitched up a little Mario:





A few days later the hoop she stitched for me arrived. We were completely on the same wavelength because she did a piranha plant for me:



Swapping is really fun. Thanks, Pugwash!

Hoopla Round 2

Look what Luckdragon stitched for me in the Embroidery Hoopla Round 2 swap on Craftster!

I love the french knot lei on the little boy. She did a little bit of crayon tinting and it makes a very nice effect. I also like the thick texture of the girl's hair.

I just signed up for round 3 of this swap. This one went very fast and was a lot easier than the Tea Towel Tours I used to co-organize. Those were an extravaganza of messages, mailouts, and communications. This is a simple exchange with no extras. I imagine a nice display wall of hoops as I do more swapping. I have a lovely collection of fully decorated tea towels from my last several embroidery swaps, but those are hard to display.

Check out this link with just the image posts from the swap and you won't have to read all of the chit-chat.

Summer Already!

It seems I have settled in to this pattern of only occasionally checking in to the blog. Last time I told you about the Chicago Quilt Show. If you want to see more quilt photos, check out my flickr photoset HERE. Gosh, I love a good quilt show..

It took me a long time, but I finally finished an African embroidery pattern for my mom. She picked it out several years ago when we were shopping the vendors at the Chicago Quilt Show.



At the time, I thought, "I've always wanted to try that kind of embroidery, I bet I could do it." This is the project where I first learned my most favorite chain stitch.

Thus began a long and satisfying love affair with embroidery.

As it happened, I got about halfway through this project and then I started doing Hillary Lang's Stitchettes. I never did finish all of those either... You can see the Stitchettes I did stitch at the bottom of THIS BLOG POST.



It was a rainy afternoon just before Mothers Day this year and I was watching some of the PBS craft shows, and the host was stitching this very African Folklore Embroidery project. I got my act together, and stitched the rest of this during several of my guilty pleasure DVR shows. (Aren't the Real Housewives crazy this season? And Eep! Hoarders!)

Mom finally has her African Girls pillow! I even managed to sew in a zipper. When she picked out the project, she figured that she never would go to Africa, even though she is fascinated by world travel and native cultures, folk art, and artifacts. Fortunately, the opportunity came and she went on a trip there with a good friend.



This pillow really looked cute on my sofa too, but I don't want to start another identical project that takes five years to finish.

In other news, look how cute the crochet bunny hat looks on the recipient. She is such a sweet little girl:

Scarf and Hearts

I saw this project on Craft Hope. It's a part of the Orphan Foundation of America's Red Scarf Project . I'm sharing my scarf late, because it was sent out before Valentines Day. My scarf isn't red, but I am sure I read on the instructions that other collegiate style colors were welcome...

I handstitched a cute little red felt heart tag for my package. It was fun to knit again! I used some of Vanna's Choice Yarn which is a squishy wool/acrylic blend.



I'm also finishing up one of my quilts. I sewed on the binding last week, and my Olympics project is to cuddle up under it and handstitch it down on the backside whle watching various events. We find that we really enjoy curling! Go Canada! I like the Winter Olympics better than the Summer Olympics, because I think the events are more fun to watch. How about you?



Most of the fabrics on this quilt are from the Katie Jump Rope collection by Denyse Schmidt. I liked that little red floral so much I found an etsy seller who still had it in stock and I bought two extra yards to do the binding and to gaze at lovingly.

________________

My friend Sarah Moore, from Craft Critique, is organizing a professional crafters convention taking place here in Chicago this October called CraftyCon

It will be a great opportunity for crafters to network with other crafters, and to get hands on training with industry experts. Sign up to get on the CraftyCon email list or follow them on Facebook or Twitter. Its going to be a great event!

Glowing Stitching

I stitched a glowing snowflake for Craft Critique to review Glow in the Dark Embroidery Floss by DMC. I liked it and it really glows a lot!

Check it out HERE.

Tea Towel Tour 5

The Susie Can Stitch family is still around, but I've been busy and a little bit overwhelmed by various things lately. Only one more week of school and the kids are home for the holidays! The craft show I did a few weeks ago went well and I think it is one I may do again since both times I've done it have been successful.

I realized that I never shared with you the lovely Tea Towel that was stitched for me in our Tea Towel Tour 5 swap on Craftster!
As you can see, there is a large area for me to add my very own motif. I plan to get to that sometime. Probably after Christmas when things settle down a bit. Ugh.. those colors are all messed up in the above photo. The towel is white, not greenish and pinkish... Cloudy day with artificial light makes for bad pictures. I did want to share an ironed towel with you. THIS PHOTO has better lighting, but the towel needed to be pressed.

First, this is the stitching by Pearliepie. She used rich colors to stitch these beautiful stylized flowers for me. I love their folk arty feel and that outlining stitch is amazing:


Next is the stitching by j-q-adams. He uses variegated floss to great effect! I love the french knots and a bird motif was a theme I was thinking of going with until I decided not to specify a theme for this towel.


This is the stitching added by Kitten Wrangler. She did a Hungarian motif not even knowing that I am 1/4 Hungarian! This is amazing satin stitching and there is an unusual sort of weaving done on one of the flowers:


Here is the motif by SarahJ2001. I adore Hollyhocks, but I haven't been able to get them to grow here in my Chicagoland clay soil. Her stitching is full of charm and warmth and I love the pretty variety of colors she chose:


Finally, this is the stitching by Ritaizza. This is a design from a crewel work book she has. Crewel is a tapestry embroidery done in wool, but the desings are easily adapted to cotton floss. I think she has done a sort of twisted stem stitch on some of the flowers which adds a cool texture.


I absolutely love my towel! Thanks so much to my talented swap partners who kept up with our demanding swap!

Kawung Style Embroidery

I reviewed Dritz Mark-B-Gone Marking Pens for Craft Critique. Click HERE to read my article.

I also finished my last stitching for my Tea Towel Tour swap at Craftster. Click HERE to see our gallery. Find the "See Images Only" tab to edit out the chit-chat.

Kitten Wrangler indicated that she was interested in traditional Indonesian design so I did some research. I found mostly batik designs, but a motif I thought would translate to embroidery was this style of interlocking circles called "Kawung".



It is a beautiful loose weave linen cloth, so the circles came out very slightly wonky. Batik motifs are also imperfect, so I'm being authentic, right? I used DMC Color Variations embroidery floss for the circles. It is lovely floss! Note to family: Good Christmas gift for Susie is the multipack of Color Variations Floss.



Here is Kitten Wrangler's finished towel. Actually it is a napkin, but in this swap I call everything a towel regardless if it is an apron or something else. Click on the photo to go over to Flickr to see the labeled photo. I didn't do most of this lovely stitching!

Felt S'more Needlebook

These are some needlebooks I made for a beginning Brownie Troop. Their leader contacted me and since it happens that she is from my hometown and these Brownies go to my very own elementary school, I took on the project.



I used that Ecofelt which is made from recycled soda bottles. I also machine stitched the components because it went a lot faster and I had only a few days to finish them.



They each have a chocolate colored monogram. The closed needlebook can also be used as a pincushion.



These were fun to make! I have a couple left that just need to be handstitched together.

Flirty Taco Chips

These are the flirty taco chips I stitched up for ritapizza in our Tea Towel Tour on Craftster. This is a pattern by Jacque Davis that she made available free in the Hoop Love group on Flickr. Get it HERE.



They are bathing in guacamole. I decided that if Rita doesn't like guacamole, then it is spinach dip. Rita reports that she does like guacamole so all is good! I used chain stitch throughout, except on the eyes and boys' faces. The chain stitch gives the ladies puffed up collagen lips which I like (in stitching, not in real life..)

Here in Chicagoland we have the best, most delicious corn chips ever in the history of taco chips. If you eat Tostitos, I am sorry for you. These are in every store in Chicagoland in big displays. They are so fresh they taste like they are right out of the fryer. They only have four ingredients: corn, lime, corn oil, and salt. They are made locally by El Ranchero. We call them "Chips-in-a-Green-Bag" at our house. I don't know if other people call them that, but it seems like when I say that everyone around here knows exactly the chips I refer to.


Interestingly, their price seems to fluctuate with the price of corn, but they are always a better price than commercial brands. My son is one of those kids who really likes very crunchy snacks. If we don't have green apples and Chips-in-a-Green-Bag in the house, I better get to the store quick!

Cowboy Small

This is Cowboy Small. He's the embroidery I finished for Pearliepie in our Tea Towel Tour swap on Craftster.

She wanted a Wild West Saloon theme, but I remembered this adorable children's book from our collection and wanted to stitch him up Here is his coiled up rope:

He's an image from a charming children's book first published in 1949. Lois Lenski won the Newberry Medal for children's literature and probably should have won a Caldecott Medal too.

Chain stitching throughout! I tried french knots for his eyes, but they pulled through so I used small satin stitching instead.

Clown Fish Embroidery

This is the clownfish embroidery I did for j_q_adams in our Tea Towel Tour 5 swap on Craftster. He wants an aquatic/oceanic theme for his towel, and I thought that the clownfish might be the most charming fish in the ocean. I remember teaching about the coral reef back when I was a teacher. The reef pictures I found just didn't have the appeal of this little guy.

His towel is a nice ecru color. I did my favorite chain stitches with 2 strands of embroidery floss. I used a coloring book image, (I think.. clown fish images were easy to find) and just started stitching the outline in black really late at night. About halfway around, I realized that doing the outline that way meant that I would have to fill-in a lot. I have a phobia about fill-in stitching. I don't know why, because I think these rows and swirls of chain stitches look cool.

Something else I noticed is that DMC embroidery floss is really nice and silky. The black I had was something I've had in my stash for a while, maybe Coats and Clark or something and it was just noticeably not as easy to work with.

Tea Towel Tour Round 5!

I think this might be my 7th Tea Towel Tour! This is the stitching I did for SarahJ2001:

Stalking her revealed a love for roller coasters, so I thought this coloring book motif would be perfect.

Whee!

And because I love it when people do these title motifs, but I never do it myself, here is SarahJ's stitching for her own towel. She says she is new to embroidery, but she did a great job!

In other news, I think we had the H1N1 flu in our house over the weekend. It hit my husband and son hard, but my daughter and I have no symptoms. It was a nasty flu, but it didn't last that long. Turns out there is no real way of knowing if it was the notorious virus going around because they can only test for that when symptoms are just beginning or at their worst, and.. uh... my guys were stuck in the bathroom at that point. In any case, we are on the mend, but we missed some fun Labor Day activities we were looking forward to!

Craft Social

Last Friday I went to Craft Social in Chicago. (Actually, it was in Evanston, but nevermind...) There were many crafts to choose from including Embellished Dinner Napkins, Advanced Paper Airplanes, Fabric Coil Bowls, Paper Greeting Cards, and many more. The cost was only $5 and it was really fun!



Since I haven't been stitching, I chose a craft that was familiar to me: Felt and Button Flowers. These are really funky and our teacher had a box of lovely vintage glittery things to use as embellishments.



We noted that the felt was sort of floppy and flimsey, so I stitched together two layers for stability.

I don't like to make a big thing about men crafting because I think that men are just as creative as women, but here is a man spotted next to me learning to stitch. His creation has a superhero medallion look to it.

The stitcher next to me used velvet ribbon as one of her layers. It looked very sophisticated, but I didn't get a picture!

It was fun! I hope they have another Craft Social really soon! I could teach embroidered felt mascots!

Circus Embroidery - Free Patterns!

Last spring I posted about a circus embroidery piece my Grandma Nelson did for my mom when mom was a child. That would have been sometime in the 1940's. People really liked it and recently Shawn Lorette contacted me at Flickr to see if I would allow her to make tracings of that embroidery piece so that free patterns can be available to people who want to embroidery it themselves.

HERE is her flickr photoset for the tracings. If you want to copy them, you choose the picture you like and click on "All Sizes" You can download the image to your own computer or print off a copy in a size you choose.

Thanks, Shawn Lorette for making these available! Be sure to let me know at Flickr or here on my blog if you stitch any of these circus motifs. My Grandma would love it!