Hello everyone
Hope this finds you well? Just to let you know that I will be away teaching at our South African Ighali embroidery convention next week and the Etsy shop will be closed from Sunday 21st August till Tuesday 30th August 2016.
My apologies for any inconvenience.
Till next time, keep smiling and happy stitching.
Trish
Hello everyone
Hope this finds you happy and well! As per numerous requests the digital patterns for European Bee eater, Flowers in a teacup and Campagne landscape are now available in the Etsy shop. You can click on the pictures below to access each one.
European bee eater digital pattern
Flowers in a teacup digital pattern
Campagne landscape digital pattern
Till next time have a wonderful weekend and happy stitching! Trish
It is world embroidery day today 30th July 2016. People from all over the globe are going out into parks, gardens or meeting at venues to share and celebrate their love of stitching. Why not join them or have your own private celebration by putting some time aside to stitch today. While you stitch think good thoughts about every person you know who has had a positive impact on your embroidery or just simply dwell for a moment on the pure joy and beauty of embroidery in your life. These good thoughts will go out into the world and bless everyone!
Nancy Tozer kindly sent me an email with this link where you can read more about World Embroidery day and how it was started in Sweden.
Click on this link; WORLD EMBROIDERY DAY.
Have a wonderful day and happy stitching! Trish
Hello everyone
It has been some time since we last spoke, hope you are enjoying your summer holidays overseas – we are freezing here in Cape Town! While you have been basking in the sun I have been busy as a bee and this week I am pleased to share with you a few new items in the shop. In response to numerous requests for more bird projects we have the European Bee eater kit, there is also a new lesson kit in whitework and an update on the white cotton project bags.
NEW KITS
European Bee Eater Bird. It is always difficult choosing a bird project – I get so many emails from different parts of the world requesting a preference for a bird in their country of origin, but there are certain aspects that I look for when stitching a bird: Firstly it needs to be beautiful and worth spending the time on, it needs to be a good form or composition and there has to be a certain something in the colours and shading that appeals. I also tend to like birds that have a kind eye, some of them look so angry! I am sure you will agree that the European bee eater ticks all the boxes? The colours are awesome and it really was a joy to stitch. You can find it in the Etsy shop here.
Close up
Little cup of flowers lesson. The lesson in Whitework with colour allows you to learn the technique from the comfort of your home and to work at your own pace. The little cup of flowers lesson in sumptuous shades of plum, gold and cream will teach you all the basics and includes everything you need to stitch the project. The design is simple, but has enough detail to keep it interesting. You can find the kit in the Etsy shop here.
Little cup of flowers
There are now two lessons available one for Whitework with colour and another for needlepainting that will allow you to either learn the technique or brush up on your existing skills. They both include fabric with printed outline, needles, instruction booklets and pre-sorted threads, so all you need is to provide a hoop. You can find these kits in the section FULL KITS.
Needlepainting lesson
NEW KIT INSTRUCTIONS
As you know over the last few months I have been re-vamping the kit instructions to achieve a simpler format which includes a cleaner interface with more pictures and less text. As a result it is easier to follow without having to turn back the pages whilst stitching. We have removed a few pages of stitch instructions and instead compiled these into one handy notebook – THE NEEDLEPAINTING & WHITEWORK HANDBOOK. The kit instructions include a basic stitch glossary but you will require a copy of the handbook for detailed instruction. Once you have a copy you can refer to it for any of my current or future projects. The good news is that as a result of minimizing the instructions the printing costs have been reduced and so we have been able to lower the price of each kit slightly. The initial copies of the handbook sold out within a few days but I have received new stock which you can find in the Etsy shop here.
WHITE COTTON PROJECT BAGS
The initial response to these little bags was amazing, I had no idea they would be so popular and we were sold out very quickly – you can read about them in a previous post here: COTTON PROJECT BAGS.
Some of you emailed me and suggested that the printed outline might be stitched and this got me thinking…………. I was concerned that it might be difficult to stitch as you would have to get your hands inside of the bag and it would get in the way but I found a way and it worked beautifully! All you need to do is mount the picture area into a small hoop and fold back the excess fabric as shown below – then tack it into place whilst stitching.
I then stitched the design in simple outline and filling stitches and this opened up a whole new idea for using these bags – they could be stitched as a gift for friends or family, or you could make it up into a little kit by adding a few skeins of thread – something different for birthdays or Christmas. The bag itself has multiple uses: project bag for embroidery, quilting or sewing, lingerie/shoe bag for travel or a storage bag for stationary/other to name a few. The bag is now available in two different prints: Gatsby and Cup Of Flowers. With the bag you will receive a project card with a picture of the finished stitching and some suggested thread colours and stitches to use – the great thing about it is that you can use up threads that you have in your stash, use any stitches you like and have fun with it. The bags can be found in the Etsy shop here.
If you have previously ordered the cotton bags and would like a PDF copy of the project card please email me through the contact form on the website.
project card
Hope you like the new additions, have a wonderful week and till next time keep smiling and happy stitching.
Trish
Hello Everyone
Hope you are all on top of the world and enjoying your weekend? Here is the printout for the TOP TEN REASONS FOR DOING EMBROIDERY as promised. I have designed a layout for them so you can frame it or just keep it on file – read it, ponder it and enjoy! You can access a PDF of this printout here.
Till next time wherever you are in the world keep smiling and happy stitching.
Trish
Hello everyone, hope your week is going well.
Following on from the post Top Ten Reasons For Doing Embroidery – here are the next five reasons:
Never, ever compare your work to anyone else s because it just wont look the same. Be gentle with yourself, we are our own worst critics, but no one ever looks at your work close up. I always ask my students to step away from their work for a minute and view it from afar. Staring at your embroidery for any length of time you are bound to see every little mistake or areas that you are not happy with, but when viewed from afar all those little errors will vanish and what you will see is a beautiful piece of work. This especially applies to long & short shading – which will suddenly take on a lovely glow which you may have not noticed before.
You are no longer a “shrinking marigold” taking a backseat in conversations, now you have something of value and interest to discuss with others. You may think that others don’t really want to know about embroidery but isn’t it is far more interesting than talking politics or hearing a blow by blow account of a golf game? I find that when I tell someone that I am an embroidery designer the answer is: ” Oh my granny used to do crochet” (???) I generally smile sweetly and let it go. But other times when I am determined that they should know it is not just another set of doilies for the dresser, I show them some photos of my work and then there is a totally different reaction – they want to know how its done, do you work over a painted picture, how do you know what to put in the outline and the most frequently asked question is “How long does one piece take you?”
Attending conventions and attending overseas workshops is a wonderful way to meet and mingle with like minded people from different cultures and countries, while doing the thing you love most, but if you cant get there form a local group of your own.
Isn’t the internet just awesome! We can buy things online with the click of a mouse (and a visa card:)). My cousin told me that she fills her basket with everything she wants and then when she’s finished deletes it all saying “Well that was fun”! We can see whats available without having to get in the car and do battle with traffic and crowds, we can chat to others and keep in touch with like minded people. It has made the world seem so much smaller. No matter where we live or how remote we are we can stay in touch, even though I work alone in my studio I never feel lonely. Its a good reason to get savvy with your computer/tablet – amazing what we can do if we have a good reason to do it.
The world statistics on depression are staggering – but we are not one of those statistics! We have a reason to get up in the morning, we always have something to look forward to and something good and beautiful to ponder. We have a reason to smile.
Embroidery guild memberships are declining throughout the world. There is a need to encourage a younger membership but with everything being “instant” these days the up and coming generation are not much interested in learning how to make their embroidery look as neat on the back as it does on the front! I believe that it is important to uphold the formal, traditional methods of embroidery that have been passed down through generations, but it is equally important to meed the needs of the present day embroiderer by introducing more contemporary designs that are not so labour intensive or that have too many “rules” attached.
It is encouraging to see on places like Etsy, Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook that there are numerous young people using hand embroidery in a different way to create items from phone cases, to hoop art. These artists are introducing a fresh, modern approach to hand embroidery and bringing it into the 21st century which tells me that hand embroidery is still very much alive!
Till next time wherever you are in the world keep smiling and happy stitching.
Trish
Hello everyone
Just wanted to let you know that there is a new item in the ETSY shop here.
It is a 100% cotton drawstring project bag in white, which keeps your embroidery project clean whilst stitching or when it needs to be stored for any length of time. The Cotton fabric provides an acid free environment and protects from light damage, dust and spills. We all know how important it is to keep your work clean, especially to prevent the formation of stubborn hoop marks which are difficult to remove with washing. When you have finished your stitching, simply slip the whole hoop with mounted fabric, and threads into the bag and pull ribbon to close. Can be hung on a chair/door/hook to keep out the way, stored in a drawer, or placed inside a tote bag to carry with you on the go.
Having used pillow slips and cotton shopping bags in the past I decided to design a bag specifically for this task. With the help of a CMT specialist we set out to design a bag that was exactly the right size and shape for embroidery projects and that could hold any size hoop up to the largest size 10″ – simple but effective. It is full washable, can be tumble dried and ironed and has an attractive Gatsby outline with logo on the front. The outline is meant for decoration but there is no reason why you could not stitch it with a simple outline stitch if you wanted and give it as a gift to a friend? The bag could also be used for storing quilting/craft projects, or for packing shoes, lingerie or cosmetics, etc in luggage.
Since I got the stock, I have commandeered at least 10 of them for myself and cannot tell you how useful they are!
Have a wonderful weekend and happy stitching!
Trish
