The Accidental Embroiderer

From drawing to embroidery, and then a Christmas break

At the NEOS show I talked with several people who wanted to know where my designs came from. I explained that they started with a drawing, and then I used digitising software to turned them into embroidery. Some people thought that it was just a matter of scanning in the drawing and simply clicking on it – it would then be magically transformed into an embroidery file.

Of course you can sometimes do this – auto-digitise software is certainly popular and it has its uses. But I find it very limited in what it can do, so I prefer to use the more “free-hand” functions of digitising software - what's usually called "manual punching".

 

A sketch for an embroidery design

 

For example, take this rough sketch of a flock of birds. If you tried to “auto-digitise” this, you would end up with a total mess. What you have to do is take it into a more advanced software function, and then just use the drawing as a guide to re-create the design from the beginning

The sketch becomes an embroidery

 

And this is the part that’s fun – using imagination and new ideas to transform something crude and simple into something with a bit more character

Now - here in the UK we're all becoming overcome by Christmas and Christmas preparations, and it's probably like that where-ever you are. So I will take a break from blogging until after the holidays, and will be back in the New Year with (I hope) a whole new repertoire of designs.

I wish all blog readers a happy and peaceful holiday

This time with wings

Linda (who noticed that the original Christmas angel had no wings) has very kindly stitched out the version with wings, and here he is. So now you can choose – with wings or without!

And thanks Linda for your work!

 

A P.S. to the Christmas freebie

Sharp-eyed blog reader Linda has noticed that the Christmas angel I posted yesterday was missing his wings. There are several reasons for this, the main one being that I didn't have time to test-stitch the winged version. But I suppose you can't have an angel without wings, so I'm putting up a winged version of the same angel. Because I didn't stitch him out I have no picture to show you, but it's exactly the same one as yesterday with wings added

However bear in mind that it's possible, because I haven't tested it, there may be problems with it. Also the wings aren't mentioned in the worksheet. But they stitch out first and second, so after that you can use the worksheet

If you're brave enough to try it, here is the angel with wings

A Christmas freebie

Well, it’s almost December and I still haven’t done anything about putting up a Christmas freebie. It’s true that I’ve designed and digitised a few new things but to be honest I just didn’t like them all that much. So I’m going back to an earlier time and an earlier collection of Renaissance angels, and have found this handsome fellow. He’s inspired by the work of some painter or other – can’t remember who just now – but he makes a nice appealing Christmas image

 

A Renaissance Christmas angel

 

He’s for the 4x4 inch hoop and so will be about the right size to fit onto a Christmas card. Where the design asks for “Deep Gold” (colour 1) and “Silver (colour 14) I suggest using metallic threads to give a really Christmassy effect

So – good luck with him, and I hope he may come in handy over the holidays! Here is the embroidery file (in .pes v.6) and here is the worksheet

 

Some more from the exhibition, and a new enterprise!

Well, Typepad seems to be back to normal, thank goodness, so perhaps I can now get back to posting as usual. I haven’t yet shown much of what I exhibited at the NEOS show this year, so here are a couple of black birds in the midst of colourful foliage and flowers

 

Blackbird among the flowers

 

Crow in the oak tree

 

But aside from the exhibition, I’ve recently been working hard to put up some designs on the Secrets of Embroidery website. Have a look: https://secretsof.com/machine-embroidery/designs/The-Accidental-Embroiderer. I’ve enjoyed working with “collections” again – that is, groups of designs devoted to a single subject, and I hope to put up more collections in the near future. And the Secrets of Embroidery people have been really helpful and encouraging. But this blog is still of first importance to me. My first interests have always been thinking about and talking about designs, and trying to see how far this kind of embroidery can go. So I will definitely still be writing to the blog and will carry on offering free designs just as usual

 

 

An invisible freebie!

Well, Typepad is still not able to show any images on my blog posts which, believe me, is INFURIATING, and if this isn't fixed soon I will be changing blog providers. 

However, it does look as if I might be able to post files, so I am taking a chance and will try and put up a free design. Of course I can't show you a picture of it, so you'll just have to trust me on this! The design is of a Celtic knot in two colours, for the 4x4 inch (100 x 100 mm) hoop. 

I'm taking a chance on this, as I don't know if you'll be able to get the design. If you have problems, please let me know!  Anyway, good luck...

Here is the design, in .pes v.6

Many apologies...

Something has gone wrong with Typepad. I can still post text but I can't add images to my posts, and since there's not a lot of point to an embroidery site without pictures, I haven't posted anything for some days. And you may have noticed that some of the pictures attached to past posts are missing too

As well as all that, I'm really late with November's freebie, but I don't think there would be any point in even trying to put up a design file as things are at the moment. So - as I said, my apologies for my silence. I'll be back as soon as I can, as soon as Typepad gets its act together, and will try to put up some extra freebies as compensation

A scarcity of dinosaurs

While I was looking after my table at the NEOS show, someone came up to me and asked if I had any embroideries of dinosaurs, as she had a young relative who loved them. I had to admit that dinosaurs didn’t feature in my repertoire of designs, but after some discussion we decided that dragons ran a close second, and dragon designs might be acceptable to a young boy with a taste for huge, monstrous creatures

As it happens, I had done a series of dragons some years ago and three of them presented themselves as possible dinosaur substitutes. So I stitched them out and sent them to her. I believe she intends to make a cushion out of them, and I hope that the result will be one satisfied small boy

 

As good as dinosaurs?

I suppose that I could consider dinosaurs as subjects for embroidery, but in the first place they have rather blobby, clumsy, undefined shapes, and then of course they don’t come in bright colours – or at least not as far as we know. So perhaps I’ll stick to dragons for the time being

A mysterious goose

First of all, I’d like to welcome all the people who have subscribed to the blog in the past few days. I think this must be as a result of a mention on Facebook some days ago – in any case there’s been a huge spike in the number of visitors and the number of new subscribers. I’d better just mention, however, that I don’t give freebies out every week – usually I post a new freebie around the beginning of each month, and the rest of the time you’ll just have to listen to me maundering on about embroidery designs in general. However if you are new to the blog, have a look at the "Free Designs" tab at the top of the page, and it will tell you when all my earlier freebies have been posted

So today we have another report back from our recent North East Open Studios exhibition, which went very well. I was surprised at the number of things I sold. I love it when people buy things – not so much for the money, but because it’s proof that other people see and enjoy things in much the same way that I do. Art is, after all, a kind of communication, and it’s good to know that my designs can communicate

 

A goose of unknown origins

I found this goose in a pile of old designs, and took it along to the exhibition just because I liked it. It was immediately bought by someone who was very enthusiastic about it, and wanted to know where I’d got my inspiration. I was so embarrassed to have to tell her that I had no idea! We do have a lot of wild geese in the fields around here, but where I got the idea for this decorated one I just can’t say. It just mysteriously appeared in my mind - another inspiration from the subconscious, I suppose

Another flowery freebie

Many of my recent freebies have been of flowers and leaves of some kind, and I’m afraid this month we have yet another. It’s just a straightforward flower-and-leaf composition – maybe not wildly exciting, but it might be useful. It’s tilted on one corner, as you can see, so it might be of use in embellishing some of those awkward corners of quilts and cushions. But I’ll see if I can come up with something new next month – any suggestions?

 

Nothing out of the ordinary, but perhaps useful?

 

Here is the design, in .pes v.6