The Accidental Embroiderer

Some more Big Birds

A couple of weeks ago I posted the first of some very big panels I’ve been doing for Cherri – these are all for the 10 ½ x 16 inch (272 x 408 mm) hoop and I think she intends to make cushion covers from them. She has asked for several bird designs, which is fine with me. Birds have got to be just about my favourite subjects

Anyway here are four of them sitting in a row, embellished with an assortment of half Mexican, half folk arty floral motifs. Yes, I can see them on a cushion very well!

 

Four Big Birds, all in a row

Back to the decorative

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I’ve been brooding about the differences between designs in a decorative style (for instance, things that you’d use on cushions or table linen) and pieces that are more “arty” – that you’d be more likely to frame and hang on the wall. Of course, some artists can work in both styles at the same time – for example, some designs by William Morris can be both decorative and “art”. But I enjoy working in both styles, and as it’s been a long time since I’ve posted strictly decorative patterns, here are a couple of pieces from a series of floral patterns that I did some time ago.

 

Floral number 1 - somewhat in the style of William Morris

 

 

Another from the Morris school of design

Because they were inspired by the work of William Morris, they have a rather “Victorian” feeling, and if I ever have the time, I might stitch them on some scatter cushions. It’s true that our house is anything but Victorian in design, but they might fit in anyway

 

 

The beginnings of a BIG project

When I started with machine embroidery (and I hate to think how long ago that was…) the largest design you could use was about 5 x 7 inches (130 x 180 mm) That sounds pitiful now, with all the huge hoops that modern machines can use. Those large hoops have such a lot of potential – you can make designs with all sorts of tiny details, and the finished embroideries can have an astonishing impact

Recently my friend Cherri has had some ideas for some really large and colourful designs, and I’ve been enjoying myself designing and digitising them. (I leave the stitching to her – I just do the fun part!)

Anyway this is the first of what I think is going to be a very large series of very large designs. It’s for the 10 ½ x 16 inch (272 x 408 mm) hoop, and it’s just about the largest size I can manage on my digitising software. It has around 114,000 stitches, and takes something like 5 hours to stitch out. But as I say, I leave that part to Cherri!

A very Big Bird

A freebie from a past inspiration.

For this month’s freebie I’m going back to a posting from some time ago, which featured a design adapted from Celtic art from the island of Iona. If you want to see the original posting with an idea where this design comes from, have a look at the blog for January 2019, at https://theaccidentalembroiderer.typepad.com/the-accidental-embroiderer/2019/01/index.html

 

Inspired by the art of Iona

Just bear in mind that the design in the 2019 post was done at a very large size, to fit on a pillow, and this version is a lot smaller!

It's complex but it’s pretty easy to stitch out, although there are a few jumps. It’s for the 4 inch x 4 inch hoop (100 mm x 100 mm) and it has 15,479 stitches with 6 colours and 7 colour changes. I don’t think you’ll need a worksheet – if you just follow the colours mentioned, you should end up with something like the picture. Here is the design, in .pes v.6

I’ll just take this chance to mention again that if anyone has any ideas for freebies that I could offer, just let me know. I can’t always do everything that’s suggested, but there are usually good reasons for this, and I’d love to know what might be popular