I made these for I Sew Cute, my partner in the Set of Tea Towels Swap Round 2. I used Takara Blythe names, but drew the dolls myself so they don't really look exactly like their namesakes. I took little bits from a lot of different sources and combined them all to make these patterns. I got the border and banner from Kittyzilla's Watchmen patterns on Flickr, I got the flowers inside the border on Retro Mama from one of the mandala patterns on Flossbox, the border around the 2 "Blythe" towels is from one of the Sublime Stitching books, the candy and the girly bits like the shoe and bag are from pics I found while googling.

So, let's get to the good stuff. First up we've got Dotty Dot:



Then the first of 2 Blythe towels:



Here's Retro Mama:



The second of the 2 Blythe towels:



Here's Candy Carnival:



And finally here's all 5 towels together:

[PARTNERS:]

Post 'em when you get 'em!

Link to the original swap thread.

SENT
PARTNER HAS RECEIVED
LATE WITH GOOD COMMUNICATION
LATE WITH POOR COMMUNICATION
FEEDBACK GIVEN

PARTNERS:

Lilyvanilli <------> I Sew Cute

elvissatx <------> kittykill

fiberartsy <------> la la laurrenn

fezzle <------> camelama

Beetastic <------> ~Glenda

vmfein <------> phnxreign99

csi_princess <------> sonjabegonia

psyche <------> savage pixie

jesa <------> Craftastrophe

Automaton J. <------> fatewineroses

This is on a tea towel for Ritapizza. I love kawaii!

I found this design on Flickr in the Hoop Love transfer pool. It's on a tea towel for kittykill. Here are some closeups:

[Details of swap:]

Swap name: Set of Tea Towels Swap - Round 2

Craftster member who is organizing this swap: Lilyvanilli and elvissatx

Sign-up date range: March 9th until March 24th

Date to send item by: April 30th

Limited to a certain number of people? No

Restricted to people who all live in the same country? No

Age requirement? See guidelines

Swap Organizer himself/herself meets these conditions:
- Has fully read the Swap Info Guide: YES
- Has successfully completed two swaps as a participant: YES
- Is not organizing more than three swaps right now: YES
- Will recruit a co-organizer or give all details to a Swap Moderator if this swap has more than 25 participants: YES

Swap Organizer will check each participant to make sure they meet these conditions:
- Has been a member for at least one month: YES
- Has posted at least 15 times: YES
- Has completed one swap successfully before signing up for multiple swaps at a time: YES
- Is not currently signed up for more than five swaps: YES
- Does not have any negative feedback: YES
- Participant has agreed that he/she is at least 13 years old: YES



Details of swap:
Who doesn’t love tea towels?! For this swap we will be embroidering or cross-stitching a set of them. The minimum will be 3, but if you and your partner agree to do more that’s fine, just please make sure to communicate so you both end up happy with what you receive. This will be considered one large project so the time spent should be 3+ hours.

Here is the gallery for Round One if you'd like to check it out.

Rules and other info for this swap:
- For this round we will not be accepting any first time swappers. You must have at least one completed swap, with feedback, in your profile to join this one.

- Once partners are assigned please post an update in this thread once a week. You don’t have to write more than your crafting progress (one towel 50%) or even just “checking in” if you don’t want to. People who post weekly are less likely to flake.

- One week before send-outs we will PM everyone to make sure everything’s going okay, see if you will be sending late, etc. If you will be sending late you MUST notify both organizers and your partner!

- Delivery Confirmation must be purchased unless sending out of the country in which case you must get, and keep, a receipt. Please send us a picture of your receipt if you can not do DC#s.

- When sending PMs SEND TO BOTH ORGANIZERS and please label them as “Tea Towel” with one of the following tags:
Approval
Sent
Received
Question

So when sending the questionnaire, the subject will read “Tea Towel - Approval.” When notifying us about sending and receiving packages, add the corresponding tag. If you just have a general question label it as that. This will keep things organized for us.

- We will set up a gallery once the first person has shipped. Please post pictures when your package arrives. Your partner put a lot of work into crafting for you! They deserve a little recognition! We will not leave feedback until pictures are posted. It’s always a good idea to take pictures of your package before you send just in case your partner doesn’t have a camera or can’t post pictures for some reason.

- THERE WILL BE FEEDBACK FOR THIS SWAP! This is how it will be done:
Great swapper: for those who follow all the rules
Good/Poor communication:  where applicable
Sent late/early: where applicable
Did not follow shipping rule: failed to comply with the shipping rules
Didn't post pictures: failed to post pictures of what they received without an adequate explanation to their partner

Swappers will receive temporary negative feedback if:
- it is one week past send-outs and you are out of communication.
- it is two weeks past send-outs and you have not yet sent, regardless of the communication with us and your partner.



If you want to participate, information to send to BOTH organizers - Lilyvanilli and elvissatx:

QUESTIONNAIRE TO ANSWER:
Name of swap
Craftster username
Email address
Your real name
Mailing address including the country
Would you be willing to ship to an address outside your own country?
Confirm that are at least 13 years old (yes/no)
Do you embroider or cross-stitch?
Would you like to receive embroidery or cross-stitch?
What kind of patterns/themes/images would you like on your towels?
What kind of things would you NOT like on your towels?
What are your favorite colors?
Least favorite colors?
Anything else you’d like me or your partner to know?
Details about yourself?
Allergies (pets, smoke, etc.)?
Do you live in a house with pets, smoke, etc.?
If the number of people in the swap ends up odd, would you mind being in a group of 3? Example: A sends to B, B sends to C, C sends to A

These next 2 questions are just for me and for matching purposes, I will not send them to your partner:

Are you able to commit to posting in the thread once a week, sending PMs to me and your partner as needed, and posting pictures in a timely manner?

Rate your needlework skill level on a scale of 1-10: 1 means you’ve never done needlework before - 10 means you can work quickly and do any stitch well.



IF YOU WANT TO PARTICIPATE, REMEMBER TO SEND YOUR INFO TO BOTH ORGANIZERS VIA PRIVATE MESSAGE AND NOT TO REPLY WITH IT HERE.

Also remember to read the Swap Info Guide to find out how to ship your item and other details about participating in a swap.

List of approved swappers:
1. Lilyvanilli
2. elvissatx
3. la la laurrenn
4. camelama
5. ~Glenda
6. kittykill
7. phnxreign99
8. fatewineroses
9. fiberartsy
10. sonjabegonia
11. jesa
12. Craftastrophe
13. fezzle
14. Automaton J.
15. Beetastic
16. csi_princess
17. psyche
18. I Sew Cute
19. vmfein
20. savage pixie


PARTNERS:

Lilyvanilli <------> I Sew Cute

elvissatx <------> kittykill

fiberartsy <------> la la laurrenn

fezzle <------> camelama

Beetastic <------> ~Glenda

vmfein <------> phnxreign99

csi_princess <------> sonjabegonia

psyche <------> savage pixie

jesa <------> Craftastrophe

Automaton J. <------> fatewineroses



SWAP GALLERY

This piece was also made for sewphie in the IYP 11. I used to work next to a book store and every month they would recycle their old magazines to make way for the new ones. I used to watch the recycling bins like a hawk and swoop in to get all the free mags I could. Sure, most of them had the covers and quite a few pages ripped off, but who cares?! So anyway, I found this image in one of the art magazines I scavenged. I made a few changes, but all in all the image really lent itself to being turned into a stencil.

Let's move along to the good stuff. Here's a pic of the whole thing, without the frame:



Here's a close-up of her hair (probably my favorite part although I love the pants, too). I used 3 shades of auburn/brown to shade:



Here's a close-up of part of the banner. I've never really done shading before so I was VERY nervous about this part in particular. Let me tell you though, it really helps when you have good source material to show which parts need to be darker:



Next up we've got a close-up of the pants. I love how they turned out:



And last up we've got a picture of the whole piece in it's frame:



Thanks for checking this out!

I just finished up the latest round of the IYP swap and I had the wonderful sewphie as a partner. I'd been wanting to use these 2 cloud patterns I found on urbanthreads.com for a while and since it rains a lot in the UK I figured they would be nice on a canvas tote bag. Here's one side, the side I think of as the front:



I love his mustache so much! Here's the back:



He's a meany. In these pictures it's kind of hard to see but on each side there's seed stitched rain drops under the clouds. Another thing that's hard to see is the 3 color gradient I used to make the outline of each cloud. Here's a better pic of that:

Anyone up for a second round? I'd like to start signups in the last couple weeks of January so they'll end around the 1st of February, then I'd like to give everyone an entire month to craft so send-outs would be around the 1st of March. If that doesn't work I could start the signups soon and we could have an early to mid February send-out. Let me know your preference.

Here's a link to round one:

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=264150.msg2965881#msg2965881

And a link to the gallery:

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=269683.msg3041359#msg3041359

P.S. I may need a co-organizer for this round. Anyone interested?

My brother and sister-in-law just had a baby girl a couple weeks ago named Adalyn Olivia. Andrea, the mother, asked me to embroider a birth sampler and I was more than happy to oblige. After tons of internet research and an entire month's worth of work I came up with this:



Before we get started on the "making of" I'd like to introduce Adalyn Olivia. She was born on November 19th at 1:58am. She weighed 7 pounds, 2 ounces. Here she is on her birthday:



Alright, so the whole thing started with Andrea asking me to make the sampler in October. I googled birth samplers and drew inspiration from the ones I thought looked the best. I was mainly searching for information to include like place of birth, time of birth, the alphabet, numbers, etc. I knew I wanted a quote so I picked one by Henry David Thoreau. I found stamps of the crib design and the duck border at my local craft store, and then I came up with the sketch pictured below. It's a very rough draft so please excuse the drawing!



I found a bird pattern on Flickr that had a male and female. I made a few changes like leaving off the legs and heart the male was holding and altering one of the tails. I cleaned up the borders and added some of the text on the computer, then drew on the rest to make the second draft, pictured below. At this point Adalyn had about 2 weeks to go before she was born so I had to leave off all the baby information besides the place of birth. The font I used is called yummah strawberriez. It's on a regular 8 1/2" x 11" piece of paper so it's slightly smaller than that. This next picture shows the names of most of the fancy stitches I used but in the end I changed where most of them are placed.



Here is progress shot #1 taken on November 12th:



Progress shot #2 taken on November 17th:



Progress shot #3 taken on November 29th:



And here it is all finished:



I used 16 stitches total. Here's a list and some of the places you can find them:

Running - the purple border
Back - items like the cribs, Papa Bird's hat, Mama Bird's bandana, the lettering, duck, etc.
Stem - the two bird bodies, the orange line between the alphabets, the stems
Satin - the bright pink flower buds in the top section, the smaller blue flowers
Lazy Daisy - the purple flowers, the leaves
Checkered Chain - the line above the birth weight that alternates light and dark pink
French Knots - the inside of the sunflower, the bright blue dots, lower case "i"
Scalloping Chain - the sunflower petals
Scroll - the yellow dividing lines on either side of the birth weight
Chained Feather - the blue dividing line above the ducks
Cross Stitch - the variegated line below the ducks
Cable Chain - the yellow dividing line under the alphabets, above the birth place
Whipped Spider - the pink "star" shapes on either side of the numbers
Feather - the bright pink dividing line above the quote
Couching - the green and blue line dividing the numbers and birth place
Chain - the blue lines dividing the cribs and the quote

I'm very pleased with the way it turned out even though I struggled with it quite a bit, especially the colors and stitches to use. I know the parents are going to love it and I'm so proud to have made something that will hopefully become a family heirloom.

I've added a couple close-up shots below. The first one is of the Whipped Spider stitch:



Some of the highlights in this pic are the Cable Chain stitch and Feather stitch:



Last up we've got the flowers. Some of the fancy stitches are the Checkered Chain, Scroll, and Chained Feather:



Thanks for checking out my project!

My brother and sister-in-law just had a baby girl a couple weeks ago named Adalyn Olivia. Andrea, the mother, asked me to embroider a birth sampler and I was more than happy to oblige. After tons of internet research and an entire month's worth of work I came up with this:



Before we get started on the "making of" I'd like to introduce Adalyn Olivia. She was born on November 19th at 1:58am. She weighed 7 pounds, 2 ounces. Here she is on her birthday:



Alright, so the whole thing started with Andrea asking me to make the sampler in October. I googled birth samplers and drew inspiration from the ones I thought looked the best. I was mainly searching for information to include like place of birth, time of birth, the alphabet, numbers, etc. I knew I wanted a quote so I picked one by Henry David Thoreau. I found stamps of the crib design and the duck border at my local craft store, and then I came up with the sketch pictured below. It's a very rough draft so please excuse the drawing!



I found a bird pattern on Flickr that had a male and female. I made a few changes like leaving off the legs and heart the male was holding and altering one of the tails. I cleaned up the borders and added some of the text on the computer, then drew on the rest to make the second draft, pictured below. At this point Adalyn had about 2 weeks to go before she was born so I had to leave off all the baby information besides the place of birth. This next picture shows the names of most of the fancy stitches I used but in the end I changed where most of them are placed.



Here is progress shot #1 taken on November 12th:



Progress shot #2 taken on November 17th:



Progress shot #3 taken on November 29th:



And here it is all finished:



I used 16 stitches total. Here's a list and some of the places you can find them:

Running - the purple border
Back - items like the cribs, Papa Bird's hat, Mama Bird's bandana, the lettering, duck, etc.
Stem - the two bird bodies, the orange line between the alphabets, the stems
Satin - the bright pink flower buds in the top section, the smaller blue flowers
Lazy Daisy - the purple flowers, the leaves
Checkered Chain - the line above the birth weight that alternates light and dark pink
French Knots - the inside of the sunflower, the bright blue dots, lower case "i"
Scalloping Chain - the sunflower petals
Scroll - the yellow dividing lines on either side of the birth weight
Chained Feather - the blue dividing line above the ducks
Cross Stitch - the variegated line below the ducks
Cable Chain - the yellow dividing line under the alphabets, above the birth place
Whipped Spider - the pink "star" shapes on either side of the numbers
Feather - the bright pink dividing line above the quote
Couching - the green and blue line dividing the numbers and birth place
Chain - the blue lines dividing the cribs and the quote

I'm very pleased with the way it turned out even though I struggled with it quite a bit, especially the colors and stitches to use. I know the parents are going to love it and I'm so proud to have made something that will hopefully become a family heirloom.

I've added a couple close-up shots below. The first one is of the Whipped Spider stitch:



Some of the highlights in this pic are the Cable Chain stitch and Feather stitch:



Last up we've got the flowers. Some of the fancy stitches are the Checkered Chain, Scroll, and Chained Feather:



Thanks for checking out my project!

**Edited to add: The font I used is called yummah strawberriez and it's in an 8 1/2" x 11" frame.