Crafty Reading Inspiration

I love craft books and I don't think you can ever have enough. They are lovely to have and although they are not always the type of book that you read from cover to cover, they are great to dip in and out of for inspiration. 

The neatest section of my craft bookcase!

Here are the latest additions to my crafty reading inspiration...

If you've been reading along lately you'll know that I'm really getting into embroidery, so when I spotted The Stitch Bible by Kate Haxell I treated myself to a copy. There are some great traditional embroidery books out there, but I find this book refreshing as it gives a quirky modern twist to the traditional techniques.

The book is arranged into sections focusing on stitch techniques, such as Freestyle, Crewelwork and Drawn Thread and there are some great projects to use these stitches at the end of each section, like the boldly stitched Smartphone case above, which is embroidered using Hardanger stitches. I'm looking forward to getting stuck in and trying out some new stitches! (I'll post the pictures!)

I've also just bought this book, Woolly Embroidery, which is a translation of very cute Japanese embroidery patterns, focusing mainly on Crewelwork, Stupmp Work and Canvas Work. Being a real magnet for all things wool, wool embroidery really appeals to me. I'm looking to combine Harris Tweed with wool embroidery for some new jewellery pieces, so I'm excited to jump into this book and get inspired. 

The first section of the book is dedicated to very sweet woolly embroidery designs for items such as cushions and bags, followed by a "How To Stitch" section and the tutorials for the featured designs. I love the "can do" focus of the book- the whole ethos is centered around "If you can sew a button, you can embroider" and it encourages you that whatever you stitch will be lovely because it's hand worked, even if it's not perfectly stitched. It really fills you with the confidence to experiment with freestyle designs too. 

So I'm off to start embroidering! What great crafty books have you discovered lately? Share them in the comments below!

Aztec/Carnival brooches

I've been in the studio today continuing with the Aztec/Carnival themed brooches, made using up-cycled fabrics, eco friendly screen printing inks, sequins, gems and embroidery.

I've been making slow progress on these because I've been working on lots of other things, but I'm really hopeful that in the next couple of weeks I'll be posting to tell you that I've made a small collection! I'm enjoying wearing the original one I made with summery clothes in this lovely weather.

Happy Friday everyone!

Embroidery class part 2!

Following on from my first embroidery class post, today I wanted to update on how the embroidery is coming along! 

We have finished our first piece, a small flower sprig that allowed us to practice french knots, stem stitch and satin stitch. I'd like to immortalise the finished piece as a card or a notebook cover. Perhaps as an embroidery class notebook cover, decorative and useful! 

I'm finding the classes so therapeutic that at the moment I just want to embroider everything, so I can feel lots of notebook covers and cards coming on! 

This is our next project! I'd love to say that this is the one I've made, but this is our very talented tutor's piece- a super cute mushroom painted with acrylic paint on canvas and embroidered over the top using stem stitch, satin stitch and french knots. Isn't it so pretty! Such a clever idea to combine the painting with stitch

So today we set about creating our own version of the mushroom! We stretched calico onto our embroidery hoop and traced the image onto the fabric in pencil

Then we had great fun colouring the drawing with acrylics! 

Once dry, we began embroidering the outline of the mushroom in stem stitch. Our homework is to continue adding the embroidery and I'm so looking forward to carrying on with it tomorrow!

At the start of the new year I decided that I wanted this to be a big year for learning so I'm really enjoying having a dedicated time devoted to learning these new skills and I'm looking forward to reflecting what I've learnt in my work.