Monthly Archives: November 2019

3D “Anna” Embroidery

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As you know, I get most of my embroidery patterns from Namaste Embroidery. She also has a YouTube channel where she posts long-form videos of her working on the projects. I was inspired by her stumpwork tutorial and had to order the modified Anna embroidery kit. After doing the “Flowers in Her Hair” 1-ply satin stitch, I wasn’t super interested in doing the face, so I ordered the version with just the flower, leaves, and hummingbird. I was transitioning between living spaces and my sewing room wasn’t set up, so coming back to embroidery was a fun “sit in front of the TV and relax” project.

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This was my first big project with long and short stitch. I’ve tried it before, but it’s looked weird and awkward, and I wanted a larger project to give me the chance to learn it many times over. Long and short stitch is a technique used to blend colors and do “thread painting”. You use different lengths of stitches with different shades of the same color to create a gradient and blended effect. It requires a bit of preplanning but it’s well worth it. My leaves don’t match, but that’s the nice thing about stitching natural things – they don’t match anyway.

Stumpwork is a type of 3D embroidery where you use wire around the outline of the shape to give it another dimension after stitching. The wire is embedded in the work as it is stitched on a flat piece of fabric, and then the shape is cut out of the fabric. Then you can bend the wire to make it 3D!

  • Exposed wire getting tacked down
  • All petals done
  • Cut out petals

After stitching the leaves, I started in on the flower petals. I enlarged them a bit because I wanted to cover up some leafy mistakes, and also modified the directions because one of the stitches wasn’t working out for me. I ended up using 2-ply floss to wind around the wire, and then filled with long and short stitch. The hummingbird was more 1-ply long and short stitch work, and he came out quite cute. My petals are a bit large, but so very fun. I have this hung on a wall where you can see it from the front and the side.

Project completed October 9, 2019.

Full video tutorial from Namaste Embroidery

Modified Night Sky

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My third big quilt! With the puffy batting I mentioned in the rainbow bargello post. This quilt is based on the MSQC “Night Sky” pattern, but I changed the dimensions a bit to make it rectangular and added more borders.

Taped up and planned on the wall

I bought two layer cakes (10″x10″ squares), one in Black Beauty Batik (hand printed high thread count cotton) and one in this whimsical Feather and Flora line from Studio E, and the backing is the Wildflower Toss Eggplant. I had bought the batiks for a different project that I didn’t end up doing, but I think they look great here. I love the black background to go with the stars 🙂 plus I was able to use the magic 8 method that grants you 8 HSTs from two 10″ squares and I didn’t have to cut as much fabric.

I made all the HSTs and squared them to 4.5″. I decided I wanted the insides of the star to be a different pattern than the outside points, like in the original pattern, and then the borders would be scrappy and random. I made a few stars and then figured out how many I would need to make the quilt big enough for my bed. It didn’t quite work, but I went with a general design that would be close enough and then I could add borders to increase the dimensions.

Top without borders – a bit more chaotic than I planned, but I really like it.

It kind of reminds me of ripples on a smooth pond, if you had dropped the stars in. I really wanted to take advantage of the new puffy batting I got, so I decided to quilt it in horizontal lines with my walking foot, which ended up being stitch in the ditch.

  • Working on SITD – on the right you see the folded up quilt that I will move to next
  • All done! I like it much better with the border

Time check: 5.5 hours to:

  • Cut fabric for binding (9) 2.5″ strips
  • Cut fabric for border (6) 4.5″ strips
  • Sew binding together to make one long strip
  • Press binding seams open
  • Iron binding in half hotdog style
  • Make HSTs for border and sew into border at correct measurements
  • Sew entire border on
  • Iron backing fabric
  • Cut backing fabric and sew middle seam
  • Iron backing seam and quilt top border seams
  • Baste quilt sandwich
  • Stitch in the ditch on all horizontal gridlines using walking foot
  • Sew binding to back
  • Sew binding to front
~5min, 16X: laying out quilt sandwich and starting to baste
Real time: closing safety pins with Kwik Klip
~1min, 4X: stitching in the ditch with walking foot.
On the right, see the folded up quilt in the throat.
~2min, 8X: putting binding on and turning corner (sealing sandwich together)
On the bed 🙂 the rainbow bargello is on the couch now

Project completed September 14, 2019.

Rainbow Flight Attendant

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This shirt is based on the bodice of the Lekala S4108 pattern. This was my first shirt, and since I almost exclusively wear button downs, I figured I should just start with a button down. This only used 1 yard of fabric (from Joann), which was really cool. It’s kind of a firm satin? Not as slippery as the purple geode, still a bit flowy.

This, of course, was my first foray into collar making. I cut out the collar according to the pattern, but it ended up being so short that it didn’t wrap all the way around the neck opening. I didn’t have enough fabric to make a new, bigger collar, so I decided to go for a tied collar strip thing (I have another shirt like this so I figured it would work). The improv collar worked great and is the basis for the name since they used to wear those little scarves.

It was also my first time doing sleeves! It’s a bit tricky to sew a sphere-ish thing to a.. 2D/circle thing, but I used a lot of pins. I also skipped some directions which, after consultation with a friend, I should have followed. You’re supposed to “stay stitch” around the sleeve curve so it doesn’t get all out of whack and stretched when you’re sewing, which did happen a bit. But the extra bit of shoulder puff isn’t unwelcome and is pretty subtle.

It was not my first foray into buttonholes, but it was the first time I had to measure and space out my buttonholes. I put the shirt on and marked out where it felt natural for buttons to go, and saw a separation of about 2″ is a good distance. The bottom was just a bit over 2″ after the last button but I decided to not install a button so close to the hem.

I wore this on a date and it absolutely passed my wearability test, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t introduce the piece to my roommate as “am I a flight attendant now?”

Project completed March 18, 2019.

Llama Drama

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To make this cute llama, I used the embroidery kit from kirikipress on Etsy. It came with preprinted fabric and the stuffing for the inside. The front fabric used embroidered embellishments, and the back is plain. I learned new 3D techniques on this project, like the turkey work for the llama’s hair. Turkey work is done by securing big loops to the fabric, and then you cut the loops to make it fluffy.

In the hoop doing turkey work

Project completed August 2, 2018.