Birdhouse and Full Moon wall art

Textile art not only offers an alternative to oil and watercolour, it’s also a great way to display your work and preserve it behind glass.

Full Moon and Birdhouse are filled with different stitches – from zigzag back to double cross and closed blanket stitch – making the patterns interesting to embroider.

Both designs have a minimalist aesthetic when embroidered on white, but working with thread and fabric colours that inspire you is an easy way to completely change the look and feel.

I’ve framed them in box frames so the glass doesn’t squash the embroidery, and to give them a bit of a gallery feel.

The PDF patterns for Birdhouse and Full Moon are available as instant downloads from my Etsy shop.

Bashful Rabbit, for Easter

Rows of cross stitches fill this sweet rabbit, a quick embroidery project for Easter.

Bashful Rabbit is made up of one design embroidered three ways: entirely of cross stitches, with cross stitches as the inner ears and as a Dandelyne mini hoop.

They’re easy projects that can be embroidered in a day to embellish an egg hunt bag, Easter table decor or simply for a loved one who loves rabbits.

The design complements Shy Rabbit, another fun Easter project that includes printable greeting cards, as well as Carrots.

The PDF pattern for Bashful Rabbit is available as an instant download from my Etsy shop.

Christmas Monograms to personalise the holidays

Mistletoe, holly and pine give a subtle nod to the festive season in the form of monograms, for decorating your home for the holidays and making gifts.

Christmas Monograms features three festive monogram designs in fresh holiday colours. They’re perfect for stockings and Santa bags, little hoop art gifts, table place settings and gift bags… whatever you want to personalise with embroidery for family, friends and teachers. 

The PDF embroidery pattern contains three full alphabets of monograms and is available as an instant download from my Etsy shop.

Machine Embroidered Art, the natural world in stitches

Alison Holt is a graduate of Goldsmiths in London, where she studied fine art, textiles and embroidery. She chose freehand machine embroidery as her medium and “started to explore her love of gardens and the countryside”.

Alison has perfected the reproduction of nature to the point that her embroideries seem like photographs or paintings, until you look closer and realise the added layer of texture and dimension that the stitches provide. The technique she has developed to such success over the decades for her commissions, courses, lectures, workshops and books also incorporates silk painting. “More textured areas, such as rough seas and windblown grasses, lend themselves to stitch, whereas smooth areas, such as distant sea and sky, are better represented by silk painting.”

But you don’t have to be good at sketching or painting to give machine embroidered art a go. “Machine embroidery has a life of its own and some wonderful effects can be achieved without particular drawing skills.” The book shows you how to transfer a design to fabric, as well as how to use silk paints if you want to approach your work from that angle.

In Machine Embroidered Art, Alison takes readers through each of the steps required to stitch a scene of natural beauty. She starts with a rundown of the materials and equipment you’ll need, most importantly a sewing machine – any machine will do, although one with the ability to do zigzag stitches is recommended. Threads, supplies for silk painting and a list of “other equipment” are given in detail, setting you up for early success.

Alison works from photographs and always has a camera handy to shoot inspiring scenes. She then uses these and any sketches she may have done to create a design. She takes readers through the art basics of composition, balance, contrast, movement and more in the planning chapter, before moving on to light.

“Sunlight, and the shadows it creates, play a large part in where I find inspiration,” she writes, and replicating a natural scene requires one to “be bold in your choice of colours” and use a “tonal range that extends from very dark to very light”. You can see how she does this in the shadows of a bluebell wood and those cast by trees in a snowy scene.

Another chapter deals with colour, including how to blend it using your sewing machine, before moving on to the stitches.

Alison uses only straight and zigzag stitches in her work. She creates perspective by changing the length of the stitches, using longer ones in the foreground of a field of daffodils or shorter ones to denote the horizon in a sunset over the ocean. Changing the stitch length and direction helps create movement, the swell of an ocean or waves breaking. She uses her sewing machine to great effect to change the spacing, direction and angle of her stitches to “fill in any shape” and create realistic detail.

Flowers and foliage, trees and woodlands, seascapes, sunsets and snow are covered in detail, from how to embroider a delphinium to creating pebbles on a beach.

Machine Embroidered Art is comprehensive in showing how Alison creates her works of textile art, and how you can do the same. Her skill and mastery of a sewing machine are evident. But it’s the pages and pages of incredibly lifelike landscapes and natural scenes that make it an inspiring read.

This book was supplied for review by Blue Weaver, an independent book company in Cape Town, South Africa. All opinions are my own.

Christmas cheer with Noel, Joy and Peace

Three joyful messages as we head towards the festive season.

Noel, Joy and Peace are made up of lettering filled with festive details: tiny trees and bells, snowflakes and baubles, stars and boughs of greenery… They’re perfect for lovers of miniature. And the colours are simple and traditionally Christmas, keeping the focus on the details.

The PDF patterns are available individually, or as a Good Will bundle of all three at a reduced rate from my Etsy shop.