HAND EMBROIDERY PROJECTS

Oh my it is a good thing that I did take a closer picture of a few of the blocks.  I can honestly say that I had such a good time stitching these adorable puppies.  I chose simple stitches, such as the straight stitch, back stitch and the chain stitch.  The chain stitch is my favorite stitch, I use it frequently and just recently discovered a whole new set of ways to add to this stitch.

I am a huge fan of Pinterest and enjoy discovering new blog sites, new tutorials, patterns, techniques and the list goes on.  I also have to keep track of my time spent on Pinterest, it is very easy (for me, at least) to spend hours on this "playground" of endless searches.  I now limit myself to just at thirty minutes and get back to the real fun of quilting, hand embroidery or one of the other crafts I do.

 These 10 blocks have been finished and waiting for quite awhile.  I am having the hardest time choosing a quilt block to go in between and even in choosing which fabrics to use.  This is the UFO Project that I am going to complete for March.  I actually have cut out specific fabrics to use between each Puppy Block and was so-so o.k. with how it was looking.

I stopped to look up a stitch, on my Pinterest board, and decided to stop and look at another board when I had finished getting excited about trying a few new methods of the Chain Stitch.  Which I hope will work fabulously in the project below.  But starting tomorrow, I am going to begin putting together a new block for in between the Puppy Blocks.  I am really excited!  Don't you just love it when that happens when you know you have found the right fabric/block or whatever and you just know it because of that neat feeling you get?

Now, you have to wait and see what I am going to choose until the big reveal at the end of the month!

One day,  two years ago, my Husband and I were shopping after Christmas and we came across a package of flour sack tea towels that were marked down.  I do not remember the price, but we went ahead and picked up two packages.  It had been far to many years to count since I had done any hand embroidery on tea towels.  Yet, I know that a good quality tea towel is always treasured in our family.  I should mention here, just in case other individuals are used to calling them flour sack towels.  In my opinion, they are one and the same, except for the fact that as is the case with any type of fabric you get what you pay for.  Better quality costs bigger dollars!  

This is the pattern that I chose to hand embroider in the corners on this tea towel.  I apologize that it is not a very good picture.  I believe with the old camera we had that I seemed to take better pictures with it.  I am not sure what happened to it.

One idea that I have with creating these Tea Towels is that I am not going to follow a series of patterns.  What I mean by this, when my Grandmother's were teaching me to hand embroider on Tea Towels, they would use these iron on patterns from Aunt Martha's and they could have a separate design of cute kittens doing chores for each day of the week.  These easy to use iron on patterns are still available at Wal-Mart, JoAnn Fabrics and at several on line fabric stores, Etsy stores and even individual blog sites.  Another place to locate designs is on Pinterest under quite a few different topics.

With this design, I am trying out a completely new to me technique in transferring the pattern.  I forgot to write down any of the information on the location of where I found this technique.  It is very simply tracing the pattern onto one sided fusible interfacing.  Then you cut out as closely as you feel comfortable around the pattern you have traced.  Next, you iron it onto the surface of your fabric and begin hand stitching your desired stitches until your project is complete.  At this point and time, I am liking this technique.  I will post pictures when I am finished and my opinion at the end.

I am very excited to share both of these finished projects with you!  Until then, lets see if I can share some other posts.  LOL.  I am having a hard time getting back into posting, yet look at me jabbering non stop about my projects when I do.  I hope that you enjoy my posts, please give me any tips or hints you have that you feel would help me.  Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!!