The Accidental Embroiderer

Another animal for the summer shows

Well, we’re back at last after a really enjoyable trip around the Southwest of Britain. We spent some very enjoyable days on Dartmoor, which Sherlock Holmes fans will immediately remember as the home of the Hound of the Baskervilles. It’s surprising that even after more than a hundred years, this story still has a real presence in this part of the world

Anyway, it’s back to normal life now, and to some essential work on things to exhibit at the local art shows this summer. I mentioned some time ago that I wanted to include some more local wildlife in these pictures, and one of the most famous of our local animals is the red squirrel. These lovely creatures are endangered in the UK, and even in Scotland they’re far from common. So we’re very lucky to have a family of red squirrels in the forest not far from our house, and they come by all the time to raid our bird feeders

Here is a simple design of a single squirrel launching himself from one pine tree to another, which is how we usually see them. As I’ve mentioned before, machine embroidery is a wonderful medium in which to re-create the soft, furry coat of a small animal, and the technique of dense overstitching works well in this little picture. Unfortunately the scan doesn't pick up the details very well, but if you saw the stitchout "in person" you could see the realistic furriness clearly

 

Red squirrel in one of our trees

A free heart from the past

It’s a new month again so it’s time for a freebie. Here’s another one I found in my long-ago files - I can’t remember what I meant to do with it but it seems to date from the time I did a lot of Pennsylvania-Dutch inspired things. It has an appliqué area (the large heart shape) and it’s for the 5x7 inch (130 x 180 mm) hoop, but the design itself is just 4 1/2 inches (115 mm) wide.

 

Be careful of the pinks!

 

A word of warning - don’t make the same mistake that I did! I used a pink fabric for the appliquéd heart, but then I also used pink thread to stitch out the birds, and the two colours were too much alike. So when you stitch it, be sure to use nicely contrasting colours for the heart and the birds. Here it is, in .pes v.6

Now, I won’t be able to post for several weeks, because we’re off on a long tour around southwestern England - mostly to Devon and Cornwall. We used to spend a lot of our time in that part of the world, but haven’t been there for a long time, so it will be interesting to see how it’s changed. I’ll post again when we get back

So - important! If you’re one of the readers who can’t download designs directly from the blog and need to have me send you the design as an e-mail attachment, bear in mind that I won’t be around to do it for a couple of weeks. Just write to me as you usually do and I’ll send the file when I get back