The Accidental Embroiderer

A present for the physio

Recently I’ve been spending more time than I’d like with an excellent local physiotherapist, who’s been helping me a lot. The other day I was wearing a pair of earrings in the shape of owls, and she admired them, saying that she loved owls. So I thought I’d make her a little thank-you present in the form of one of my old owl designs

It’s just one of a HUGE owl collection I did some years ago. I’ve always liked owls as subjects - they’re interesting and unusual, and you can make them funny or realistic or dramatic or cute, but they always have character

I’m still going through my (immense) collection of old designs and haven’t managed to organise any new freebies for this week, but I’ll be back next week with more. By the way, if you have any ideas for free designs you’d like to see posted here, just let me know

 

What the physio wants, the physio will get!

Two free designs from the past

Right - time for some more freebies, this time two variations on the theme of floral designs. First, there’s a simple little design that was inspired by the works of the famous artist William Morris. It’s only small,  but it might find a home as part of a larger quilt or cushion project

 

Remembering William Morris

 

William Morris was a central figure of the Arts and Crafts movement in Britain, and the second design today is something that looks as if it were inspired by that art tradition

 

More Arts and Crafts flowers

 

Both designs are for the 4x4 inch (100 mm x 100 mm) hoop, and both are embroidery only, with no applique. And both are in .pes v.6  HERE is the little William Morris, and HERE is the second Arts and Crafts design. As always, if they don't download properly for you, just drop me a note and I'll e-mail them to you

My latest project

Because I’m known locally as “an embroiderer”, I’m often asked to exhibit at one of the many craft shows we have here. But I always say no, because I’m a terrible seamstress. I’ve tried making embroidered bags and purses and shirts, but they’re always awful. And they take so much time to make, and if I don’t sell them they hang around in my studio for years. But the other day, I was about to say no to another invitation when I had a brainwave. Not bags or purses, but embroidered greetings cards! They don’t take any sewing - just trimming and gluing, and they’re quick and easy to make. And people like sending cards to friends and family, so they often buy a lot. And even if some cards don’t sell they’re small enough to fit into a folder until the next craft fair

So recently I’ve been spending every last minute making, cutting and gluing greetings cards, and I now have about 100, which I hope will be enough for the craft fair. I’ll let you know how it goes. But here are a few of them

 

A collection of cards

 

They're usually very simple designs compared to many of my more elaborate creations, but none the worse for that. They're just small stitchouts trimmed and glued inside what the craft shops call "triple-fold aperture cards", and I can strongly recommend them as an attractive way of using simple embroideries

But I'll be back next time with more freebies - perhaps including some from this card collection!

Maybe it's working? Try some freebies

 

Well, things MAY be getting better. There are still some problems with the images that I'm trying to post, but things are a little better than they were. So I'm taking a chance and posting some freebies

 In my last post I included a freebie based on a drawing of the Dutch artist M. C. Escher. It’s pretty obvious that I am a devoted admirer of Escher’s work, and I have turned a lot of his designs into embroideries. This week we have another - a design of four interlocking fish. It’s taken straight from one of Escher's drawings - it’s not my work in any way (apart from the digitising, of course!)

 

Four Escher fish

 

And just to carry on with designs based on older schools of art, the second design is a simple Art Nouveau motif, which might go well on a cushion or perhaps a quilt

 

Art Nouveau lives again!

 

Both designs are in embroidery only (no applique) and both are in .pes v.6

Click HERE to get the Escher fish, and HERE for the Art Nouveau square

 

And the best of luck to you! I really hope the system is working

 

 

I'm still here, but...

You could be forgiven for thinking that I've given up the blog - NOT TRUE! I'm trying desperately to post but I'm having major problems with Typepad. Writing is OK (as you can see) but it's become impossible to post images, and as there's not much point in a design blog without images, there's no point in posting at all. And I've got all these free designs that I'm desperate to give away!

I'm getting professional help with this so I really hope it won't be long before things are fixed. So here's hoping that it won't be long before I'm back and posting as usual. Thanks so much for your patience

 

 

The first of many?

Well, that break was just a little TOO long! I hope I haven’t lost many readers because of my long silence. But I did have a good excuse! The operation went well and I can now see a lot better than I could before, and thank goodness I can now get back to drawing and digitising

 

But before the operation I spent some time going though all my old embroidery files, and believe me, there are a LOT of them - several thousand at least. And it’s such a pity that all these designs are just sitting in my computer doing nothing at all. So I thought - why not give them away to embroiderers who might be able to use them?

 

So for a while now, most of my posts will include a selection of free designs from my past embroidering life. They will be a pretty random collection but perhaps you might be able to find a use for some of them. Now, I’d better warn you that none of these designs were originally intended to be passed on - they were for my use only. So there may well be glitches (un-necessary jumps, etc.) which I never bothered to correct. All these designs will be in .pes v.6

 

So - now for the first of what I hope will be many! You may remember that some time ago I posted a design that was roughly based on the designs of the famous artist Escher. Well, today I’m passing on a real Escher! The three interlocking birds were taken from one of his drawings.

 

A real Escher!

 

It’s for the 4x4 inch (100 mm x 100 mm) hoop. And you can download it HERE

 

The second design is a pair of interlocking fish - goodness knows where I got the idea but it makes an interesting embroidery.

Two interlocking fish

 

It’s for the 5 x 8 inch (130 x 180 mm) hoop and HERE it is

 

As always, if you have any problems with these designs, just let me know via the “Comments” page on the blog. Good luck!

Another one for the shows

As I mentioned, I’ve been putting together a collection of pieces to exhibit at our summer shows. I’ve learned that if you exhibit a work that’s stuck up on the wall in the middle of a lot of large, spectacular pieces, you really need to do your best to catch the attention of the audience. And bright colours do that well, so here’s a group of birds done in bright pinks and yellows. The swirling stitching should help make them stand out in a crowd.

 

Three for the show...

 

Now - I will have to take a short break from blogging, as I need to have a minor eye operation. It’s not in the least serious but it will rather cramp my style for a couple of weeks. But I’ll be back as soon as I can, and I hope with a nice surprise for readers!

A different kind of free bird

OK, another month, another freebie. I have no idea why or when I designed this bird - you will probably recognise it as a parakeet - or a budgerigar, if you’re in Britain. It’s unusually realistic compared to the exotic, flamboyant birds I usually like to do, but there’s nothing wrong with realism in the right place! You can of course turn him into a blue bird - or indeed any other colour you like just by changing the colours of the thread you use

 

A realistic green parakeet (or budgerigar...)

 

So HERE is the file, in .pes v.6. He’s for the 4 x 4 inch (100 x 100 mm) hoop and he’s all embroidery - no applique. As always, if you have problems drop me a line via the "Comments" section and I'll try to sort it out

It’s (almost) Show Time!

So is this really art show time? No, we don’t have many exhibitions here in the winter months, and the really big events aren’t until summer or autumn. But last year I realised that, because I hadn’t prepared early, when the time did come I didn’t have many pieces suitable for exhibition. So this year it’s going to be a really early start, and I’ve recently been working on the kind of large pieces that I need to enter shows with. Which explains, incidentally, why I haven’t posted here recently - these exhibition pieces take quite a long time to design, digitise and stitch out. But this is my first attempt for this year.

 

Some Green Escher birds

I’ve always been fascinated by the work of the Dutch artist Escher, and have been inspired by him in many ways. This is a sort of Escheresque composition - yes, I know it's not done in the true Escher style, but I tried to give them the same feeling that he gives his animals, of fitting nicely into the shape of their neighbours. Long-term blog readers may recognise this as something I lifted from one of my past designs featuring birds in a tree. But these birds should be good enough on their own when they’re nicely framed

Some very decorated birds.

Last August I posted a design of an elaborate feathery bird, which I was lucky enough to sell later at our September exhibition. This bird started me thinking about ways that birds (always my favourite subject) could be made elaborate and decorative - almost in a baroque style. The result was a collection of 12 “baroque birds”. OK, the style isn’t really “baroque” in the usual meaning of the word, but they’re certainly elaborately decorated, which is what I had in mind

 

 

Two rather baroquish bird designs

 

So now there are 10 more decorated birds in the files, not unlike these in general feeling, and now all I have to do is to find a way to use them!