July 17, 2019July 17, 2019 - nicolastitch Leave a comment

Hand stitching with felt

Felt is a man made fibre that can be produced from natural fibres (wool or animal fur) as well as from synthetic fibres.

Working with felt can be an absolute joy for hand stitching. It is fantastic for making felt plushies, decorations, or even as a backing material for a textured embroidery design. Whenever I make a new design out of felt I always try and persuade people to opt for felt made from the more natural fibres – for good reason…

Compared to synthetic felt, wool felt is so much softer and nicer to work with. It is also a lot stronger which means your creations will last and last. Synthetic felt can go bobbly and shiny after a while which is not a good look and can be so disheartening after you have lovingly made something and then it looks ragged and cheap in a very short time.

If you are on a budget then you still have the choice to go for a better felt. There are many variatons in Wool felt from mixed blends through to 100% wool so shop around. The higher the quantity of wool in the felt the better (in my opinion) the result will be. There are many online retailers selling fabulous wool felt in the UK and I have never been disappointed when I have made something from 100% even if it did cost a bit more!

My Felt sewing patterns have been delighting many stitchers for the past few years. All my patterns have been sewn in 100% wool felt which I got from The Wool Felt Company and I can honestly say they still look as good now as they did when I first made them even though they have had a lot of handling and photo shoots!

To make them even more irresistable to sew I have just designed them a whole new wardrobe out of felt!

There are coats, collars, bows, flowers, and all made in felt. A lot of these were made with a gorgeous merino wool felt from Cloud Craft. The colours from here are so lovely and the super soft feel was just perfect for the accessories.

If you would like to sew up a simple felt plushie you can see all my designs in my Etsy shop for Plushie Patterns. Along with the pattern you get a guide on making templates and transferring to your felt so you can’t go wrong.

Just make sure you use a good quality felt for the best results!

Take a look at these gorgeous felt makes I found around the web from some very talented designers… Click on the image to be taken to their shop…

July 12, 2019July 11, 2019 - nicolastitch Leave a comment

July Friday Freebie Embroidery Pattern – Larkspur

The Larkspur flower is the Birth flower for the month of July. There seems to be quite a few different meanings associated with the flower however the one that stands out to me is that it symbolises enjoying life.

They look gorgeous in all different colours and many individual colours have meanings of their own so this can be a great way to make something truly unique for someone who celebrates a birthday in July.

If you would like to stitch some of these fabulous flowers then you can download the template for the above design here…

Larkspur Pattern Template

Trace the design on to your fabric, pop in an embroidery hoop and get stitching…

I used DMC floss and stitched with 2 strands throughout the design.

With green, start by stitching all the stems in split stitch.

The colours I chose to stitch my flowers in were a mix of lilac, purple, pink and burgandy – choose your colours and start stitching with the centre flower.

Chain stitch the flowers on either side of the stem working your way up from the bottom to the top.

To create a thicker looking flower, stitch the outer layer of chain stitch in the same colour on the same flower.

Continue stitching the rest of the flower stems with chain stitch in the same way to complete the design. These are really nice and simple to stitch but look so pretty when completed.

If you stitch up some Larkspur flowers let me see how you get on. You can find me on Instagram and Facebook with @stitchdoodlesdesign.

If you are interested in saving 20% off your next order in the Stitchdoodles Etsy Shop, I send my totally unadvertised and steepest discounts to my Doodle Club subscribers. When you join you’ll actually receive your first discount instantly! If it’s something you would like to snag for later, feel free to join the club here:

https://www.subscribepage.com/stitchdoodles_discountcoupon

July 10, 2019July 11, 2019 - nicolastitch Leave a comment

Wildflowers and Rabbits in Embroidery

Remember the walk I showed you last week? With all those lovely colours and gorgeous wild rabbits? Well, it had me totally inspired to create a new design as I just had to get those thistles in stitch somehow! So, I have had great fun coming up with a new design and here’s a sneak peak of how it looks so far…

I have packed this full of colour with thistles, daisies, bullrush, dandelions and greenery to add lots of interest. The rabbits are scattered in the foliage just like I see them every morning on my walk.

This one is going to be in the hoop for a more traditional finish and I can’t wait to get all the flowers and rabbits completed to see the finished result. Just shows you what ideas you can get from a simple morning walk!

July 6, 2019July 6, 2019 - nicolastitch Leave a comment

The Magic Sticky Fabri Solvy

There are so many ways to transfer your hand embroidery pattern on to your fabric. I have my own favourites and very often it depends on the design.

Here’s a sketch of one of my latest designs. The design idea was to replicate some of the many blocks from the ‘Dear Jane’ quilt by Jane A Stickle. I wanted a Mini embroidered version and it had to be quite precise in the drawing…

Since the original quilt had 169 blocks there were a lot to choose from. My 8 inch design contained 36 mini blocks (2cm in size!) This was all really nice and simple when it came to drawing it on graph paper however I soon realised when I wanted to transfer it to fabric this was not going to be possible by tracing!

Here’s the design printed straight on to the Magic stuff and then it has a sticky backing so all you need to do is stick it on to your fabric.

So we’ll skip forward to after the stitching is all done so you can see how this stuff actually works…

Take a look at this short video and you will see how simple and stress free it is…

If you have a complex design that needs transferring or you just want to give this stuff a go – you can purchase single sheets from my shop here.

Here’s how the design looked once dryed, ironed and framed…

The pattern itself is not available just yet and once it is, I will be posting a tutorial for framing your work in a box frame just like I did with this one.

Happy Stitching!

July 4, 2019July 4, 2019 - nicolastitch Leave a comment

National Ice Cream Month!

Can you believe there is actually a month that celebrates Ice Cream?! Well there is and July is the month. It came in to effect in the US in 1984 and they celebrate the 3rd Sunday of July with National Ice Cream Day!

Well, we all love Ice Cream but instead of eating your way through the month, why not get your Ice Cream fix by stitching up my ‘Icecream and Sprinkles’ design instead?!

Lots of fun but with none of the calories! Plenty of yummy coloured threads to be used in this one. Of course you could go all out and enjoy an actual Ice Cream whilst stitching them as well. Just watch out for the sticky fingers!