Robot Pillow...

I just love this fabric and the colors in it. And, I love, love, love the little robot doggie.

{hugs}

Laura

A Pillow For Charlotte...

Another pillow - I love the orange and pink colors and the elephants are so cute.

{hugs}

Laura

Embroidered Pillow...

I have been making embroidered pillows lately - I love it.

I go to the fabric store, pick out a fabric for the back and draw a design that matches to embroider on the front of the pillow. 

Here is one I did for my friend's son. 

{hugs}

Laura

Fabric Wrapped Embroidery Hoop, Tutorial...

I have always loved the look of fabric wrapped hoops for displaying your embroidery. 

And, even though it's pretty easy to figure out how to wrap fabric around the hoop, I was wondering how other crafters were finishing the backs of their hoops. Although, after looking online to find tutorials, I found very few. 

For the hoops that I have made in the past, I left my embroidered fabric long, pulling it tight together using needle and thread and covering the whole back with a circle of felt or fabric. It looked nice, but it was a lot of extra work. 

Well, I recently notice at a craft show a couple hoops finished with the embroidered fabric cut short and hot glued inside the edge of the hoop. I like the simplicity of it as well as being able to see the back of my work. I try really hard to keep the back of my embroidery neat and I don't mind seeing it. Although, for gifts or for selling, it would be nice to glue a circle of felt or fabric to the back. Maybe I'll do that next time... 

I hope you find this tutorial helpful.

{hugs}

Laura

After finishing my embroidery and making my crochet accents, I am ready to get started.

I used a rotary cutter to cut thin strips of fabric. My hoop is 4 inches and I cut 2 strips of fabric that were 1/2 inch wide and 24 inches long. They don't have to be perfect because the edges don't really stand out after it's wrapped. So, if you don't have a rotary cutter, scissors will work great.

For wrapping the fabric, I used school glue. It worked great keeping the fabric in place and it's thin consistency doesn't add any extra bulk like hot glue would have.

 Just start with about an inch of glue on the inside of the outer hoop.

Now, just tightly wrap the fabric around the hoop, overlapping the fabric as you go. I started as close to the end as possible, wrapping my fabric over the metal "L" bracket.

 Then, when needed, add more glue and continue wrapping.

When you get to the end of your fabric strip, apply some glue to the fabric as well as the hoop to secure the end.

Then, start the new strip of fabric over the top of the first.

 Continue around, adding fabric strips as needed, until you get to the end.

At the end, trim your fabric so it's long enough to finish on the inside of the hoop and glue it in place. Beware, your fabric strips will unravel a little as you wrap. I just used my embroidery scissors and trimmed the threads off.

 Next, I trimmed the embroidered fabric to a little less than a 1/2 inch.

I did not wait for the school glue to be dry before putting my hoops back together. Just make sure everything is lined up perfectly and then tighten the screw.

Using a low-temp hot glue gun, I applied a small amount of hot glue to the inner hoop and gently pressed down the fabric with my fingers, making little folds here and there where needed.

 The final thing to do was to hot glue on my crochet accents and I was done.

Hoop Art...

I have recently created two embroidered hoops with crocheted flowers to hang. I have been wanting to do something like this for a long time and I am really happy with how they turned out.

I will be posting a tutorial for wrapping the hoop with fabric very soon.

{hugs}
Laura

Froggy Pillow for Trey...

I just finished this pillow last night. My friend asked me to make it for her son. I fell in love with the backing fabric when I saw it at Joann's. The colors are beautiful and the design was perfect for a toddler. 

For my embroidery pattern, I just took different elements from the fabric. It was a really hard decision because I love all of the animals in it - but the frog won out.  I really love how it turned out. You can see the pillow I made for his older brother here. 

{hugs}

Laura

Still Here...

New flowers...

New growth...

New embroidery project...

{hugs}

Laura

Stitchalong at Ellen's Place...

My blog friend Ellyn is having a monthly Stitchalong. Although slow to blog about it, here is mine.

You can find the pattern for Ellyn's January design here, February's design here and March's design here. Ellyn also has a Flicker page for the Stitchalong so when you are done with your embroidery, you can share it with others.

Thank you Ellyn for creating such a fun project.

{hugs}
Laura

Embroidery in Hoops...

I love the look of embroidery in hoops and have seen a lot of really neat examples of it lately on Pinterest and a few blogs I like to visit. I created a three different ones for Christmas gifts this year and have waited until now to share them to keep from spoiling the surprise. I painted the hoops to match each one and really love the way they turned out.

{hugs}
Laura


I saw a cute example of this one on Pinterest and created the pattern on the computer using the fonts I liked. I added a ribbon loop for hanging.

I embroidered the "&" in a split stitch and then did the names in back stitch over the top of it.

After doing the 1D in back stitch, I used a crayon to color it in - giving it a "grunge" look - and then heat set it with and iron.

This is one of my favorite sayings and I found the design here at Stars & Sunshine.

For all three of these, I finished the backs with a circle of felt attached with whip stitch.