Tutorial: 'Love Without Reason' embroidery

I designed and made this embroidery for Mother's Day this year. A mother's love knows no bounds, it truly is 'love without reason'.  I am so pleased with how it came out, exactly what I had envisaged in my mind's eye. The design itself is very simple, with only four basic embroidery stitches, so even beginners should have little trouble with it.




MATERIALS:

You will need:
- The pattern (download it as a PDF and print it to A4)
- 20cm embroidery hoop
- 30cm square of fabric of your choice
- Pilot Frixion or other fabric tracing pen
- Embroidery thread in any colour you like
- Embroidery needle
- Two felt discs the same size as the inner hoop

STEPS:

1. Trace the pattern onto your fabric. You can refer to my tutorial 'Tracing an embroidery pattern' for this.
2. Stretch the fabric onto the hoop, making sure the tightening knob is on top.



3. There is no particular order to the embroidery of the elements, you can do it in any order you wish. The only exception to this are the yellow buds - embroider those first before adding the green stalks.

Here is a quick guide for each element, with links to video tutorials for the stitches from Mary Corbet's Needle 'N Thread (my online embroidery bible). Seasoned embroiderers will know these all by heart. Beginners - have a go, all the stitches used here are beginner-friendly and while some (like the french knot and satin stitch) may take a little practice to get 'perfect', you will be surprised at how easy they are.

Yellow buds - 1 strand - satin stitch
Flowers - 2 strands - lazy daisy petals and french knot centre. I used four different colours for the flowers, a pale blush pink, a darker bricky pink, orange, and aqua.
Leaves & stalks - 2 strands for the outline, 1 strand for the central vein of leaves - back stitch
Text - 2 strands - back stitch (an extra row of back stitch for the thicker parts)




4. To finish, you need to tidy up the back of the embroidery. Cut the fabric in a circle 4cm wider than the hoop. Put a felt disc inside the hoop. Cut a piece of thread 10cm longer than the circumference of the hoop. Knot at one end, then do regular stitches of the same length all the way around the hoop. Tighten the thread to achieve a 'yo-yo' effect with the fabric, and secure the loose end with a knot. Put the second piece of felt on top and stitch it onto the fabric all the way around with a blanket stitch.  (Or you can glue a piece of cardboard onto the back edge of the wooden frame. I have a mortal fear of using glue around fabric, as I tend to make a huge mess, but you may be braver than me!).




5. If you have used a Pilot Frixion pen to trace the pattern, give the embroidery a quick blast with a hair drier or steam it with a steam iron (without touching the embroidery) to remove any pen marks still visible. And your embroidery is ready to hang!

Stocked up

Two bundles of fabric arrived in the post this week. One for the shop, and one for my personal stash. A lot of fabrics in the shop had sold out, so it was time to replenish, and also to get some new designs in.



There are new fabrics for both boys and girls. I adore the one on top - it's a Riley Blake print called 'Fly a Kite'. Cute!



There is also a whole bunch of Tasha Noel fabrics. I replenished my dwindling stock of her old line 'The Simple Life' - very popular with my customers, so several prints had sold out. I also got my hands on some of her new fabric line 'Little Red'. I like the way her fabrics coordinate so well with each other.



The other parcel had some Fig Tree layer cakes for my personal stash, but I will share those with you later. I went a bit nuts fabric shopping, I confess! And not just fabrics, notions too. Just look at these adorable lace-edged bias tape that arrived this morning, and these wooden buttons. Apple and teddy bear buttons! (Love.) No idea what they will be used for yet, but I am sure they will be perfect for a project some day. If I like something I like to get it there and then (especially if it is on sale). Most of the time I have absolutely no idea what I am going to do with it. However there is nothing I hate more than going back to order a particular fabric or a trim, only to find out that they have sold out or been discontinued. I end up kicking myself then.



Things have been a bit slow on the project front, as I am still up to my ears in shop orders. In the little spare time I get from those (and my two hooligans) I have been working on the clamshell blanket and also started an embroidery for Mother's Day. It is my own design and the pattern will be coming in the next post.



Until then - have a lovely crafty day!

Tutorial: How to label plastic floss cards

You may have faced this dilemma - whether to use paper or plastic embroidery floss cards. Paper cards are good because you can write the floss number on them, but they don't wear well and need replacing frequently. Plastic cards last forever (literally) but it is next to impossible to write on them. Or if you are lucky enough to find a pen that marks the plastic without running, it looks something like in the picture below (A is for 'Anchor' as I also have Cosmo and a small amount of DMC in my floss box). Messy.



A very simple solution then - just tape the label from the floss skein onto the plastic card, and you have the best of both worlds. Brilliant. Can't believe it took me years to come up with this one.



I demonstrated here using Cosmo floss. Slide the label off the floss skein, cut it at the back, then trim it on the sides to fit the plastic card. Then tape the label to the card, and you are ready to wind your floss. Easy peasy.







And here is how it looks with Anchor floss. The thing I really like about this method is the fact that the labels for each floss brand is distinctive, so you won't confuse the colour numbers.




So there you go! One tidy floss box, with cards that will last forever and ever...

Clamshell-along

Winter is almost here now. There is a decided chill in the air and the vineyards outside are finally starting to turn red - they were a long time coming this year. Very soon the big machines will come to prune the vines and there will only be bare branches left. So I stand at the bedroom window a few minutes every morning and savour the autumn colours. Love this time of year.



Even though the days are still warm in the sunshine, at night it's 'brrrr'. Constant reminder that here in South Australia we are literally at the edge of a great big desert the size of a continent. So my projects these days have 'warmth' as a common theme. I have made Alice another hat (will show it to you soon), working on one for Alexander, and I was thinking it would be lovely to make Alice a little blanket for the car / pram. Then the next morning I was reading my favourite blogs over coffee and croissant (my breakfast ritual), and I saw the new clamshell crochet pattern posted by Sandra from Cherry Heart. Swoon. Even better she was running a crochet-along in her Ravelry group for anyone who wanted to use the pattern to make something, anything. I signed up in a heartbeat, to make a blanket. My first crochet-along!

Then to choose the colours for the blanket. Those of you who follow me on Pinterest would have noticed that I collect images of colour combinations on my Colour Palette board. I love looking at pretty colours, and couldn't wait to use them for a project one day. So I went and had a look and this one immediately caught my eye - perfect for a baby blanket. Pink but not too princessy in its pinkness - more a peachy-apricoty-blushy kind of pink. And lots of earthy beiges and browns to balance it as well. Even better, I already had yarn in almost the exact shades. Perfect.



And here is where I got to so far. It took a few rows to get the hang of the pattern but I know it by heart now. I am absolutely loving the colours. You may have noticed my slight love affair with pastel shades. I may flirt with brights, but I will always be a pastel girl at heart.







In other news I finally completed and submitted the secret squirrel project I have been working on for Homespun magazine. I am very pleased with how it came out, and can't wait to see it in the feature. I had to complete a personal profile questionnaire for the feature, which took me almost as long as the project itself. They wanted a portrait photo as well. Good heavens. I don't have any recent photos of me without a cute kid or two hanging off some part of my anatomy, so I asked my husband to take a photo especially (OK who am I kidding, to take a few hundred photos so I could find one where I looked semi-presentable).

And last but not least - the postman brought me the best present the other day, goodies I won a few days ago in a giveaway run by the lovely Clare from Clare's Craftroom. The perfect present for an embroiderer - not only a great book with a full library of embroidery stitches (I didn't have one! Squee!), but Cosmo floss (my fave), some gorgeous trim, and a cute tape measure and scissor set. LOVE! Thank you Clare!

Remembrance poppies

It's ANZAC Day here in Australia. So here's a little poem and a bunch of crochet poppies - in memory of all the servicemen and women who gave their lives in wars and conflicts.



Why are they selling poppies, Mummy? 
Selling poppies in town today. 
The poppies, child, are flowers of love. 
For the men who marched away. 



But why have they chosen a poppy, Mummy? 
Why not a beautiful rose? 
Because my child, men fought and died 
In the fields where the poppies grow. 



But why are the poppies so red, Mummy? 
Why are the poppies so red? 
Red is the colour of blood, my child. 
The blood that our soldiers shed. 



The heart of the poppy is black, Mummy. 
Why does it have to be black? 
Black, my child, is the symbol of grief. 
For the men who never came back. 


But why, Mummy are you crying so? 
Your tears are giving you pain. 
My tears are my fears for you my child. 
For the world is forgetting again.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
* Poem: The Inquisitive Mind of a Child, author unknown
** Crochet pattern: Patons Remembrance Poppies
 

A shop update

It has been a while since I have talked about my Etsy shop here - not properly since I launched my first product line in fact. Remember the ruffle bibs?



Well the shop has moved on a lot since then. As a general rule I don't talk about the shop much here on the blog. Down Grapevine Lane is first and foremost a craft blog, and not a marketing tool to drive traffic to the shop. In fact the shop was almost an afterthought - I first set it up because I kept getting asked if I would sell some of the items I made as personal projects  (and that's why the shop is heavily skewed towards baby/kid items, as most of the stuff I make these days are for my kids). It is important to me that I make (and sell) things I enjoy working on, and I don't pay any attention to how much revenue something is likely to generate when I pick my next project. If the item has sale potential, great. If it doesn't, no biggie. The shop's certainly not going to make me a millionaire. But every little helps - I do have a very expensive fabric addiction to finance!

So here is a quick overview of some of the new lines I have added to the shop since opening it at the end of January. I have already shown you the crochet items before (cloche hat, owls, and amigurumi bunny), so here's the rest.

Cuddly blanket toys for babies are probably my most popular item of all. They have a fluffy minky backing and a crinkly layer in the middle that makes that delightful scrunchy noise that babies go nuts about. I make them in 20 different fabric options, here are a few and some of my favourites. The name tags are hand embroidered.


And, of course, more bibs. Patch-work style and personalised, these are especially popular as gifts. They come with a soft minky backing (dot or smooth), and are available with a top snap or a side snap.



Another popular gift item is the baby gift set - consisting of coordinating cuddly blanket, bib, and burp cloth, with hand embroidered name. Available in 20 different fabrics, including boy and unisex options.



The 'Simple Life' fabrics by Tasha Noel have been very popular - and unsurprisingly so. Look at the lovely coordination of colours and patterns. The aqua colourway is especially gorgeous and a particular favourite of mine. My heart sings when someone orders one of these.



And finally some images from my production process and shop 'floor'. I am not showing you the rest of my sewing table as it's nothing like those fancy sewing room images you see on Pinterest - every inch is covered with stuff. But I am a firm believer in the motto "creative mess is better than idle tidiness".







So there you go! If you wanted to visit the shop there is a link on the left and also the top of the page.  I ship all items worldwide and am happy to send directly to the gift recipient and include a  hand-written card with your message at no extra charge.

I have two upcoming projects which I am also intending to put in the shop - crochet flower garlands and personalised name bunting in coordinating fabrics in my signature style. If there is anything else you would like to see in the shop, please leave me a comment!