Stitch Swap: Complete

It's finished! Finally! A few days late, and not nearly as many stitches as I would have liked to put into it, but it's finished!

I had a ton of fun participating in the Stitch Swap hosted by Mollie @Wild Olive. For my first piece, I'm super proud of it. The fabric was gorgeous and easy to work with, and I just love all the bright colors.

I'm still working on making my petal stitch perfect, but I've just about gotten the chain stitch down.

One of the last things I added was this back stitching along the stem and petals. It's probably my favorite part. I used all 6 strands so it would be heavy and thick, and I love the way it turned out.

French knots...they are not my friend. I hate them to the bitter end.
Okay so that's a dramatization, BUT they are tough. I still haven't perfected them...as you can very well see.

I really wanted to keep this piece for myself, but I will surrender it to my swap partner. I'm happy to say I DID buy extra material. :) I just hope she loves it as much as I do!

After the frustration of first starting and getting over the learning hump of knots pulling back through the fabric, etc., hand stitching and embroidering is a really relaxing hobby. I had fun with this piece, and plan on doing more in the future!

-Jenn (With 2 N's)


Inspiration:
Fabric Wrapped Hoop
Embroidery Basics
Stitch Swap Participants

What I'm Up To

I'm really excited to be in the middle of my first embroidery project. Granted, I did learn to cross stitch when I was younger, but I got to sit down with my Mom a few days ago and she showed me all the basic stitches.

They say practice makes perfect, and I REALLY need to practice on french knots. Those boogers are hard! My big fingers get in the way. BUT, I'm slowly mastering the petal stitch and the split stitch. Those are definitely my favorites.

I found this YouTube video that also helped a lot.

As much as I researched and wanted to do a "tea" themed piece, I just have run out of time for my first piece. So, I found this amazingly beautiful material, and plan on embellishing it with french knots, petal stitches, etc. I'm excited to see how it turns out!

In other news, look what came in the mail the other day...

I am official! And I'm REALLY going to Africa! I'm so excited I could just scream. I can't wait!

-Jenn (With 2 N's)

Stitch Swap

So, now that we only have two weeks left in March and I haven't even STARTED on this project, I figured I'd tell you about my latest venture!

I blogged last month about wanting to start hand stitching. I've sort of lost my craft mojo and I'm really wanting to get it back. As busy as I am, I still have extra time. I could easily sit down for 20-30 minutes on a given day and relax with something like embroidery. Granted, I probably won't be relaxing on this first project but ya know...

Mollie from Wild Olive is hosting a fun stitch swap this month and I signed up! Instead of pairing people up, she just started at the beginning of the list and assigned each person a name. So I might send to PersonA, PersonA will send something to PersonQ, PersonQ sends to PersonB and PersonB sends something to me. You only know whose name you have. It's a secret who has your own name until you receive your package! When we signed up, Mollie asked what some of our favorite things were, so the person who gets our name could make us something we would truly love. The only real guidelines are that is has to be a finished, ready to hang piece of embroidery.

The person I got gave me a few guidelines to go off of, and I'm excited to get this project started, because I need to get it in the mail before the end of the month!!

Here are just a few ideas I've seen that I may play off of. I'm heading to the store this afternoon to pick up my supplies. We'll see how this stitching thing goes!

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As you can see, my partner said she loves "tea." I love tea too! So, this should be fun. I'm thinking about incorporating some of these cute ideas and using the tea bag to stand out. Maybe use a piece of colored felt to make the project 3D like?

We'll see... I'm excited to get going and see how well I do. I really want to start more embroidery and stitching so hopefully I have the patience for this.

Happy Friday!

-Jenn (With 2 N's)