Hi all! I recently completed this little devil for a friend's birthday. It's a combination of backstitch, splitstich and stem stitch, plus a little satin stitch for the eyes (you can't see it well - looks like my photo lost the detail when it uploaded. Not sure what I did wrong!). To make it a bit fancy, I used pearlescent thread in the tail, horns and centre of the flowers. I also used a variegated orange thread for the fire, to try to give it a flickering look. I got really lucky, and the shades matched where I joined the thread at the bottom 

For the first time, I tried a thread combo look which I read about here. I used two threads of brown and two threads of copper twisted together to stitch the hair highlights. I gave the blue flowers the same treatment with two dark / 2 light blue threads. I put it into a purple plastic embroidery hoop so my friend could hang it (on the wall of our work pod - she likes it so much it stayed at work so she can see it nearly every day).

So much fun! I enjoyed it so much I've just bought the "monkey love" pattern to sew some bibs and a baby blanket for my nephew due in September this year.

Hi all! I just finished embroidering this sweet little wool felt elephant for a friend. She's having her first baby in April and the nursery has a red theme. The elephant pattern came from a book called "Stitched Toys" by Kate Haxell (highly recommend this book - very easy to use). I used 100% wool felt and did the embroidery in three strands of DMC cotton floss. I think it only took me about 10 hours from cutting to completion - it is quite small. The blanket on the elephant was embroidered in backstitch, chain stitch and blanket stitch. The flowers were done using a laisy daisy chain stitch, and the remainder of the embroidery (legs, truck) is in a plain chain stitch. The elephant was sewn together using blanket stitch. I really enjoyed making it! A lovely gift for a baby that is very easy to put together.

Elephant stitched together, ready for gift wrapping  


One half of the elephant complete!


Thanks for looking!

My first shared project!  A dear friend is having her first baby in mid-February so I couldn't resist stitching this sheet and blanket set for her baby's cot. The pattern is from a book called "Embroidery: Contemporary and Traditional Crafts" with designs by Penny Black, India Flint and Vicki Porter.

The animals were very simple to stitch - mostly stem stitch with a little bit of backstitch. I think the whole project took about 15 hours. The sheet is white cotton poplin and all the animals were stitched with perle 5 cotton. The animals were stitched to a band and attached to the sheet in the same way bias binding is attached.

The blanket is yellow flannette, also stitched with perle 5 cotton. The animals were stitched straight on the blanket, then a backing piece was sewn on wrong-sides-together. The piece was turned right-way-out then quilted with running stitch around the edges and in the middle. This was hardest part for me - I have never quilted before and I find sewing straight lines hard 

My favourite part of the finished set were the chickens on the blanket :-)

Thanks for looking! Questions, advice and comments welcome.