Wild Coral, the latest in the Wild series of embroidery patterns

I only intended to design three patterns for this series: Wild Grass, Wild Pods and Wild Ferns. But a number of you requested a fourth towards the end of last year and so I thought, why not? I was enjoying designing them and you were enjoying embroidering them. I was reading All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr at the time and there’s a strong theme of the ocean – sea molluscs in particular – in the book, which got me thinking of the deep.

Coral reefs are considered the grasslands of the sea and so for this fourth Wild pattern, I delved into that world and it’s fascinating shapes and forms to create Wild Coral. I had no idea how diverse coral could be, or that you got hard and soft corals. I imagine a lot of soft corals are mistaken for seaweed. It was these that convinced me to go ahead with the idea, as the soft corals provided the variety of shape and form I needed to incorporate enough different stitches into the design.

I got to try out a new stitch called all-over stitch, from Embroidery Stitches by ME Wilkinson. (I shared the link to the free book download with you in my January newsletter.) I had one of those heart-quickening moments when I realised it was perfect for creating the intricate network of a piece of fine branching coral. It’s really just straight stitches, but placed in such a way as to fill an area of embroidery in an interesting way. Mary Elizabeth shows hers illustrated inside a rectangular shape, but I took a more freeform approach to create the shape of the coral.

The Wild Coral pattern is available in my Etsy and Craftsy shops.

Tree Stack : Festive embroidery pattern + printable gift tags

Split them up, keep them together or rearrange them, that’s what I like about this design – its versatility. While embroidering the 10 different trees, I kept thinking how well they’d work as individual designs on napkins for the Christmas table, but how equally effective they’d be stitched as is on a child’s Santa sack or rearranged to create a forest scene as the centrepiece of a holiday quilt.

And although some do look fairly festive – festooned with star stitches, Fair Isle patterns and stitched garlands and baubles – at the same time they’re not strictly Christmas designs. With a change of thread colour, the trees wouldn’t look out of place incorporated into home décor or as a detail on a tote bag.

They’re quick and easy to embroider and because each tree features different stitches (two in particular are slightly unusual), the overall design is somewhat of a sampler, which is always fun and interesting to stitch.

Another thought that struck me while embroidering the trees was that they’d work really well as gift tags, so I created 12 printable tags as an added extra to the pattern. All you have to do is print the last two pages as many times as needed on to white cardstock and cut out the tags. I’ll be punching holes in mine and threading through a loop of black and white baker’s twine as a finishing touch.

Whether you use it for Christmas or not, the pattern is available on Etsy and Craftsy.

Cyber Monday sale : 25% off everything on 30 November

Cyber Monday is almost here and, as I'm offering 25% off everything in my online stores, it's the perfect time to stock up on embroidery patterns for holiday stitching, gifts for your crafty friends or projects for the new year.

This year's sale runs from the evening of Sunday, 29 November to the morning of Tuesday, 1 December (SA time, GMT +2) to give everyone around the world a chance to shop on Monday, 30 November.

To shop on Etsy, add your items to the shopping cart and enter the coupon code KFNDCYBERMONDAY2015 when you check out to get 25% off the total. You can find more information on how to apply the coupon code in Etsy's guidelines. I’ve increased the available number of each pattern to stop listings from appearing as sold out, but if this does happen (in the middle of the night, for example) I’ll renew the listings as soon as possible. Otherwise please look for the patterns on Craftsy – they can’t run out there.

If you prefer to shop on Craftsy, the price shown will already have 25% taken off with the usual price in the product description for comparison.

For embroiderers living in South Africa, I’ve drawn up a sale price list in rands that you can download and browse. It tells you how to go about placing your order, which you can do anytime from now until next week Tuesday, 1 December.

Hope to see you there.

My pomegranate cushion in Mollie Makes magazine

Issue 60 of Mollie Makes features a taster from Embroidered Home: my pomegranate cushion.

The cushion itself is shaped like a pomegranate, with the outline and seeds of the fruit embroidered on the front. The seeds in particular are fun to embroider, filled with bullion knots, pistil stitches, spider web stitch and the like. The thread colours can easily be changed to suit your taste and the project includes the sewing instructions for making the cushion once you're done with the embroidery. 

The magazine is on shelves now in the UK or can be bought online from Buy Subscriptions. Digital editions are available on Zinio, Google Play and Apple Newstand. And you can see a preview of the mag on Issuu. 

Tartan Scotties, an exercise in Jacobean trellis work and needle weaving

This is one of those designs that has lingered in the back of my mind for ages, deserving more attention but not quite falling into place.

It appeared originally as a sampler in one of the early editions of The Stitch & Thimble, which for those of you who are new to my work was a digital hand embroidery magazine I put together between 2010 and 2013. Those of you who have that early edition may have recognised the design straight away.

It was a single Scottish Terrier in quite heavy colours with only the most basic instructions on how to embroider it. I’ve learnt a whole lot about writing instructions since then, as well as developed a better sense of thread colour and design.

My mother brought a beautiful piece of tweed fabric back from England and used it to upholster a wingback chair – it was all these gorgeous shades of dusty blue and grey. Maybe it was the British connection, but when I saw the chair completed, the colours made me think of the Scotties and suddenly I knew how to breathe new life into that old sampler and give those of you who love Scottie dogs (or dogs in general) a design with an elegant feel to it.

As I mentioned in my most recent newsletter, it’s a bit of a deviation for me as needle weaving isn’t something I use often in my work, but it was such a refreshing change to do it again and I thoroughly enjoyed the process.

First I modified the design. Then I spent a fair bit of time on the instructions for the pattern, creating illustrations for each written step to help you with stitch placement and to keep track of the weaving. It took a bit of adding and taking away to get the colours just right, but in the end I managed to create a similar feel to that piece of tweed fabric (although these Scotties are more tartan than tweed, stitchwise).

If all this appeals to you and you'd like to give needle weaving a try on a manageable scale, you’ll find the pattern as an instant download on Etsy and Craftsy.