Tim Burton Stitchalong

I've not done any embroidery for a while nor participated in a stitchalong so when I saw the Tim Burton stitchalong hosted by Follow the White Bunny, I had to join in as I love sewing embroidery from illustrations.

The illustration which I used is named Staring Girl and can be found in the book The Meloncholy Death Of Oyster Boy & Other Stories. It's only a small piece, measuring aprroximately 11cm x 10cm. I used water colours for the coloured parts and one thread of black embroidery cotton for the sewing. Having done this style of embroidery before I found out that if the fabric is fine I then end up with lots of trailing black thread showing through from the back so I doubled the fabric this time. I've not used water colours on fabric before and think that if I use them again I should made them bolder to stand out a bit more especially when I am using all black to sew with.

The flickr group for this stitchalong can be found here.

Feeling Stitchy Stitchalongs - August & September

 I did finally manage to finish the feeling stitchy stitchalong for August which was to embellish a piece of fabric. Having never done this before, I did start it thinking it was going to be pretty easy to do but it ended up more difficult than I imagined. The little piece of fabric which I started to embroider spent a lot of time to-ing and fro-ing from the bag in which it was stored, loved one minute and hated the next. Anyway, this is how it looked in the end.

The stitchalong for September is a cute Halloween design. I'd been looking for something Halloweeny to put onto a trick or treating bag for Little L and it was ideal.

I split the design into two as the bag I will be making will only be small so it will have a picture on both sides. The fabric I used started out as a bag which a pair of my boots arrived in, along with all the usual packaging. I knew it would come in handy one day if I kept hold of it. As the fabric was pretty pale in colour, I used felt to try and make the ghost's body stand out a bit more against the fabric.  

I'd better drag my sewing machine out sharpish to make Little L's bag as it will be her first time going trick or treating . At the moment she wants to be Spiderman and has taken to wearing an old Spidey costume of the boys lately. Not very Halloweenish but if shes happy, that's all that counts.

Feeling Stitching Stitchalong

The stitchalong on feeling stitching for this month is to sew a free pattern of your own choice. Looking round, there are absolutely loads of free patterns. Some I have downloaded to use at a later date. I chose two small patterns which have both been featured on the feeling stitchy blog.

This one of cute knitting mushrooms can be found on the Water Penny blog

and this sugar cube one is from Wild Olive. I did start the jellybean one Wild Olive but my crayon tinting didn't quite go to plan. Both these blogs have other free patterns and tutorials and Wild Olive has some lovely printables.