The Accidental Embroiderer

Yet more cats...

Well, I did explain a couple of weeks ago that I’d been doing a lot of cats recently, so here are two more of them. They’re pretty straightforward – nothing too unusual about them. They are of course digitised with the scribbled-applique technique which I’ve become so fond of, and which is particularly effective on stripy or tabby cats.

 

Maybe they need something to sit on?

These two are just from a test stitchout, and if I were doing this on a bag or as something to exhibit, I think I’d put in something for them to sit on – maybe a red cushion or something like that? Anyway, I promise that next week I’ll try to stay off the cats and post something different!

A couple of unusual designs

Recently I was asked by a friend and neighbour to design and stitch some embroideries that she could make into a quilt that she was creating for a young relative. All the designs were to be of plants and animals that were of significance to the person who was going to receive the quilt, and as a result I needed to draw and digitise some things that I'd never tried to do before

Today I'm posting the first two of these. Obviously the quilt recipient must be very interested in mushrooms, because on my list of Things To Do were two different kind of mushrooms, and here are the first of them. These particular ones are ceps, also called porcini. They're very popular ingredients in elegant cooking, but I'd never seen embroideries of them, so these may be a first!

 

      Maybe the first ever embroidery of porcini!

 

The second design is perhaps less unusual but all the same I don't think I've seen many embroidered frogs.

 

A froggy embroidery

I wish I could meet the quilt recipient - she must be a fascinating person to have so many unusual interests!

The Egyptian Cat

I mentioned some time ago that I had recently been doing a lot of cat designs. That probably was because I had discovered the "scribbled overstitching" technique, which was very useful for giving an embroidered design a furry texture, and so was ideal for doing cat portraits

Now, I'm always interested in learning how animals are drawn and painted in cultures other than my own, and recently I've been looking with great admiration at how the ancient Egyptians portrayed animals, and in particular cats. So it was inevitable, I suppose, that I should have produced a sort-of-Egyptian cat embroidery. It's not genuine, by any means - for one thing, the cat is sitting looking at you, while most authentic Egyptian cats are pictured in side view. But it's my version of an Egyptian cat, with the necklace (stitched in gold and metallic thread) perhaps giving some hint to its origins

 

A sort-of-ancient-Egyptian cat

Some freebies for the New Year

I never know if I'm sad or relieved when the holiday season passes. This year in particular, it wasn't what we're used to having, but it was all the same a happy, if bittersweet, couple of weeks

Anyway- onwards and upwards to the New Year, and we might as well start with a couple of free designs. These are quite simple, as you can see, but they're the sort of designs that might be useful for making quilt squares, table linen, cushions - that sort of thing. Again, I'm not including worksheets because it should be quite clear what the various colours are and where in the design they're supposed to go. They're both embroidery only (no applique), both for the 4x4 inch (100 x 100 mm) hoop, and both are in .pes v.6

 

Leaf Circle 1

 

Leaf Circle 2

 

Here are the links to the files - here is leaf circle 1 and here is leaf circle 2. So - good luck with them, and my best wishes for a happy, healthy and safe New Year