New "Wretched Hive" embroidery

I'm going to frame this sucker and try and sell it in my etsy/folksy shop...

Unicorn Embroidery Finished (kinda) and why I love Pinterest

here's the wide shot:

The light in my dining room is terrible, this is after much colour/contrast manipulation and it's the best I can get.... nevermind... as the title suggests it's not quite done yet. The embroidery is done, but I'm going to make it into a frilly pillow ^.^ so there will be other photo ops.

Let me tell you the story of this embroidery, before I show you the close-ups.

I'm still here.... working away,,,

Work in Progress Wednesday - Unicorn Embroidery

Damn I love Pinterest.... if you're on there and havn't found me yet, I'm here.

I found this embroidery pattern via Catlyn Lawson - original work by My Girl Thursday

 

I've seen a couple of unicorn based cross stitch projects on Craftster recently that I wanted to do an embroidery version of, and since I'm on maternity leave now I thought it was time to get my teeth into a large-ish embroidery project.

This is where I was a couple of days ago:

and this is where I am right now:

oh yea, unicorn rainbows baby!

can;t wait to get this all done.. my fingers hurt!!

British TV Comedy Swap - What I Sent!

This is what I sent to Baloo:
(1) a Jupiter Mining Corp Tote Bag:

I love the sorta hessian strapping/webbing stuff I got from Needlecraft I'll definitly be getting some more of that when I'm up there next.

2) a SMEG headband (HAHAH)

You can find a tutorial to make a headband like this for yourself over at Burdastyle. I used a comic book style font to create the applique myself and handstitched the interfaced Jersey to the gorgeous polka-dot fabric using basic running stitch, easy peasy!

and this is my favourite, even though I hate the boosh:

Lovely lined zipper pouch/clutch bag/purse/make up bag/whatever with an embroidered mighty boosh quote, and the picture that it inspired in my mind!

Embroidery Hoopla Swap: What I recieved....

Here's what I received in the Embroidery Hoopla swap from GoldSheepBowl:

Yoda baby!! hell yea!!... these'll go grea in Squiggle's room (when Squiggle gets a room)...

Embroidery Hoopla Swap: What I sent....

My partner on this swap was GoldSheepBowl Her wist had a bunch of cute, creepy embroideries inspired by Victorian freak shows.... So I ran with that and stitched up a personalised 'title' hoop and her very own bearded lady.

I stitched almost all of it in backstitch, I used a smidgen of chain stitch on the lady's (Tasha's :-) ) eyebrows, and a whole lotta french knots for her beard >.great effect before

See how I managed to work in use of my new overlocker to finish the hoops? I should have used matching thread... but that's the thing with the overlocker... every time you need new thread you gotta spend £10 on 4 spools... at the moment I only have green and red... more colours will come in time :-)

Here have my embroidery patterns!... they're rough round the edges but meh, you want perfection then pay for it!

the title piece is all mine except for the girl in the middle who is adapted from this colouring book page
Tasha is adapted from this image which is peppered around the internet:

I couldn't find an original credit for it though so if you know who it is/by let me know!

Star Wars Embroidery - finished!

here it is! rock you like a hurricane!

*bows*

I'm not 100% satisfied with the framing, I just wish I could keep me work in an embroidery frame forever! but in terms of frame jobs I've done so far this is probably the neatest. I have to work harder at getting my grain lines straight in the hoop in the first place, then hopefully it'll keep it's proportions when it's un-hooped (the border is not as straight as I'd like and the top lettering is slightly distorted :-/ )

Anyhow, enough of that, I'm very happy, here's the pattern again:

You're welcome to use it for non-profit/personal use, I'm not giving you the bumble bee because I drew that freehand. Only one thing, if you do use it LET ME KNOW!! I wanna see! Comment on here, e-mail geekysweetheart@gmail.com, post on my facebook page, PM me on craftster

Notes to embroiderers: the lettering was done completely in 2 strands of black embroidery floss with backstitch, the bumble bee is all 2 strands too, satin stitch, backstitch for the outlines and french knots for the antennae. The border is completely 3 stands of embroidery floss, the stalks are 'spoke stitch' (essentially backstitch), the leaves are lazy daisy, which is like a singular loose chain stitch. And the 'flowers' are french knots.

I completely have now made my peace with lettering and french knots, onwards and upwards!

x G

Work in Progress Wednesday - Star Wars Embroidery

So I've been working on this thing, it started out as a thought, wouldn't it be great to have a rustic embroidery piece like this:

 

but with a silly quote from star wars instead... so one afternoon I googled embroidery borders and found this:

(courtesy of tipnut) and with a lot of copying and pasting and use of text boxes on MS word I ended up with this:

which when transferred to fabric using disappearing pen looks like this:

and now looks like this:

I added a bumble bee... because bumble bees live in hives... even wretched ones....

That's actually green gingham... but in this light it looks yellow, stupid energy saving bulbs...

anyhoo... that's what I'm doing at the moment...

x G