Mollie flowers dancing in a hoop

I have a 5 year old niece who lives in Texas which

is over 2000 km away from me.

So you can probably guess that I don't see her very often.

But the last time I did I discovered that she loves

making things so I promised that I'd crochet her something.

So I decided to combine a 6 inch embroidery hoop

with crocheted flowers.

I thought that this would look nice

hanging on her wall.

The flowers themselves are from a wonderful

free pattern made by Brigitte Read

mollie flowers

The embroidery stitches in the centre
are simple french knots...
not difficult even for a beginner.

The only problem I had was how to make

the back look presentable.

I tried pleating it with the idea of

sewing them in place but

the centre part looked frayed and messy.

So I searched Pinterest to see how others 

have finished their hoops
and ended up using this one.

hoop tutorial

 I would suggest that you look over
her tutorial first to see what steps are involved.
She explains them in detail.

For my backing I picked a purple floral fabric.
I wanted to stick with a flower theme.

First I put my embroidery piece
and my piece of fabric wrong sides together.
I inserted them into the embroidery hoop
making sure everything
 was nice and tight.
As you can see in this pic of the back
I also trimmed the fabric material to about
3 inches just to make the next step easier.



 Next I folded the fabric layer
over the hoop and using a pen I marked
 where the fabric hit the base of the hoop.
Do this all the way around the hoop.
Then cut along this line.

 

Next put glue (I used Aleene's fast grab tacky glue)
 on the edges and inside wall of the hoop,
then carefully pressed the fabric onto the hoop.
I let it dry well for a couple of hours
before starting on the embroidery layer.



I repeated the same steps for the embroidery layer
Here is a pic of it ready to be cut.



And here is a pic of it cut and glued.
 I did end up putting on a little extra glue
for this final layer.



Not exactly perfect but good enough
for a first time and for something that
will be against the wall.
Any thoughts?

Good bye February

Positives from this month.

-I finally tried 2 new projects

(embroidery and stamp carving)

and I'm dying to do more.

-I set myself a challenge and completed it

even on those days 

that I didn't feel like it.

-I made some projects that have been

on my to-do list for a long time.

-I used up a LOT of scrap supplies.

-I came up with a couple patterns

plus loads of ideas.

-I've always seen my 'slowness' of

completing a craft as a negative.

I now realize that it gives me

time to change the pattern around if I want 

or to redo a part that I'm not happy with.

I'd like to do this again next
year but I would change a 
few things to make it a

little easier on myself.
The most important would be
to line up all the project ideas
(plus a few extras)
and their supplies
well ahead of time.
 This would help if the
unexpected happened...
like when my sewing machine
broke down or when
I underestimated how 
amazing the Olympics would be!


Also I would start one day early
so that I could take project 
pictures during the sunny hours 
so that at least some of the
colours would be true.


So I would highly recommend
this to anyone who's considering it.
Next year I'd like to sign up for
the official Thing-a-day.

And thanks to my cheering section!!!

Day 13: Mermaid

This is my first embroidery.
 Yesterday was a merfish and

today is a Mermaid.
The stitching is complete, 

I just need to remove the clear

transfer sheet that has the 

pattern marked on it

(you might see some of the blue

marker that should dissolve

in water).

 The free pattern is here

and while you are there check

out the rest of this talented artist's work.

I'm so glad that I finally got 

around to making this.

This challenge was the kick 

that I needed...I'm hoping

to tackle a second embroidery

project this month (fingers crossed).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For this project I bought transfer

sheets and floss for $6.00

Total this month...$7.38

Peter Rabbit embroidery

I was cleaning out the crawl space in

my laundry room today and found this.

In 1977 ( pre-children, pre-husband),
when I had loads of time,
I decided to try embroidery for the first time.
Being young, I decided to tackle a fairly large project
so I bought a this crib sized Peter Rabbit cover.

My stitches aren't too bad for a beginner
but I only managed to embroider this one panel
but I did finish all the words in the other panels
Then I quit.

Here is an overall picture of what
it could look like.

I still have all the embroidery thread
and the instructions so I'm going to
set this aside for a winter project.

I have no idea how far I'll get but
hope springs eternal.