just a little flickr action for the weekend.

click on the picture for all photo credits.

Michelle of greetingarts.com organized an embroidered button swap and I got my package a couple weeks ago. I really like how each button shows off a different stitch. I know it wasn’t intentional, but it’s a nice sampling. I never thought of cross stitch as being so classy, or using french knots to create a shag rug look. They are all fantastic and I can’t wait to put them on coats and sweaters and pillows and whatever else I can find.

1. flower by regina

2. boat by calicodaisy

3. crown by junie moon

4. strawberry by jessi

5. heart by anina

6. and a robot from the woman who made it all happen, michelle

Here are the how to use chopsticks buttons I embroidered for the swap!

I found this beautiful piece of embroidery at my local thrift store the other day. He is almost entirely done using the stem stitch, with a couple of french knots here and there. And his little beady eyes are, well, little beads. He’s not quite finished, but I’m happy to fill in the rest. I have a question for all you seasoned embroiderers out there. I think someone must have just sketched directly onto the canvas and then embroidered over it, but there is some color (fabric paint? watercolor?) you can see on his jacket and on the ends of the feathers. Is that meant to stand on it’s own or be “colored in” with stitches? I’ve never worked with transfers or patterns so I’m not familiar with the rules. He’s a little dirty: anyone have any laundering advice for something like this? He was meant to be a rather large pillow, but I might try to stretch it over a frame and hang it in the kid’s room.

These little babies are for the embroidered button swap that Ms. Greetingarts is hosting. This was my first idea and I’m very happy with how they turned out. I’m fairly new to the whole embroidery thing and I wanted to try something that was a little more detailed–something closer to drawing. I used the backstitch for the hands and the split stitch for the chopsticks. It sure as hell wasn’t easy. I pulled out a lot of stitches, but by the time I got to the fourth button I was on a roll. For the smaller buttons, which are a little under an inch across, I traced the design and for the bigger ones, which are just over an inch, I simply looked at the picture and embroidered freehand. This second method really worked well for me, though by the time I got to the last button (in last row on the left) I got cocky and thought I didn’t even have to look at the picture–bad idea. It’s pretty wonky, but oh well; I was hoping the little egg I embroidered would make up for it, but then it didn’t really turn out looking like an egg–more like a strange yellow piece of food, so I just put my needle down at that point. There are a couple of more picture of the buttons on my flickr account, if you’d like to see. This will be my first swap and I am ridiculously excited. We were only supposed to make 5, but that would mean making an incomplete set. Then you wouldn’t know how to use your chopsticks and we can’t have that.

One thing this brief stint of blogging has taught me: I cannot take a flippin picture. Obviously I took this little beauty at night, but there is a reason. I was cramming for the final. The lovely ladies over at Crafty Daisies taught an embroidery class for beginners (embroidery 101, if you will) in a series of posts on their blog. I tried embroidery once before and loved it, so I was thrilled about the class. And I read every post, but somehow never got around to the actual stitching part. So in true procrastinator fashion, I did it all the night before. All I can say is thank god for the stem stitch. I thought because I was doing all the homework at once I would actually combine all the homework into one big project. Turns out this was a better idea in my head. I took all the elements of the homework designs and made a strange birthday party in the garden where the little snail spoils everything. Or at least that’s what it became.

I learned quite a bit. Like, embroidery is drawing with texture. Which is really a bizarre thing to do and something I’m excited to experiment with. And separating embroidery thread is a pain in the ass. Is there a trick? Am I missing something? And the biggest lesson, embroidery takes a lot longer than you think it will, so start early.