A wall of blue flowers

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I found this tablecloth at the Mukilteo Artist's Garage Sale a few years ago...someone had put an ENORMOUS amount of work into it, painstakingly embroidering hundred of tiny two-tone blue flowers. It even had the little metal hoop with a needle and thread still on it. I use it as a wall covering in my little sunroom, rusty metal hoop and all.

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Again with the birds!

Yes, I know....I am obsessed. Obsessed with birds. I can't help it. And truth be told, I don't want to help it.

This is a favorite of mine I made recently. I cut up an old, stained tablecloth, sewed on a bird silhouette (silk from an old pair of pajamas!) and then covered it with a snippet of wonderful vintage lace. The cool embroidery stitch was WAY easy and WAY fast (double yay!)

A different sort of 'paint by number'

Here is an embroidery piece from a kit I bought several years ago (ahem) that I finally finished. It was the perfect project for those times when I wanted my hands to be busy but I wasn't feeling all that creative, or I just didn't want to make a big mess in my art room (or more likely I already HAD a big mess and didn't want to clean it up so I could work on something else).

I haven't decided what I'm going to do with it. Well, ironing it would be the first step, I suppose. I suspect I'll piece together some cool fabric for a background and think of a fun way to display it...maybe hanging from a small branch.

And this is from a table runner I found at the Goodwill Outlet store in Seattle. There are literally huge piles of fabric-y things (clothes, linens, pillows) to sort through, but at pennies per serving (they charge by the pound of merchandise), it's worth it. I always take everything home and immediately toss it into the washing machine. Then I have fun cutting it up (if it's clothing) and adding it to my (ever growing) stash of fabric fun-ness.

Embroidered Flora & Fauna

Oooooh, I just got the coolest book from the library...Embroidered Flora & Fauna. Imagine pages and pages of sumptuous photographs of 3-dimensional textured embroidery like this:

I want to be sitting in a comfy lounge chair, under an old shade tree, tall glass of iced mint tea next to me, embroidering pomegranates. Yes, gentle readers, you heard me correctly...pomegranates. Like so...

Check out the little birds and rabbits and flowers and leaves and grapes...I can SO feel a new obsession starting...

Embroidery Imbroglio No More!

A few weeks ago I posted the beginnings of an embroidery project which sadly featured bird legs that were awkward at best, and downright mutant at worst. Despite Carla's kind comments, I opted to surgically remove the initial stitching and try the legs again.

I'm must happier with this version, and as you can see, I added Dr. Seuss-like flowers and embellishments for the bird.

I'm loving the chain stitch. I used it for the bird's tail feathers and kind of for its head and the dangling vines. Making big, open loops is a great way to cover a lot of real estate without spending a lot of time...great for someone who likes more immediate gratification like moi. Apparently the random stitches on the bird's wing are examples of a technique called "seeding"...who knew?

Here's are a couple of closeups of the chain stitching:

Now the question is what to do with my embroidery. Covering a pillow is the obvious choice, but given how my cats love to shed and drool on such things, I'm reluctant to give them another "toy" to play with...

Cheery, cherry bird

I'm posting this just because it makes me happy to look at it. I got the image from Vintage Moth. I do notice I'm more observant about bird legs since my embroidery imbroglio.

I looked up "imbroglio" and found that one definition is a "confused mass". So this wasn't really an imbroglio...but I just really like the way those two words sound together.

Crazy Bird Legs!

I've had a hankerin' to do some embroidery lately, so when I got together with a group of artgirl friends last Sunday, I gave it a whirl. I used a piece of nice, soft cotton left over from an old table runner I had cut up previously. I grabbed my big bag of color-sorted embroidery threads and dove in. I had a vague notion of making a bird sitting on a tree branch, surrounded by flowery vines.

Patterns? We don't need no stinkin' patterns! I could do this freestyle.

Well....turns out it's very helpful to have more of a pattern than the random thoughts floating about in my head.

I actually really like the hanging vines and the branch, but the bird and especially its poor scrawny legs need some work. It looks like someone with really, really skinny legs is carrying a huge bird-shaped poster. One of my friends noted that's because BOTH legs appear to be BEHIND the body. I think that's part of the problem, but additional suggestions would be very welcome!