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Embroidery [parental advisory]

I've been doing quite a lot of embroidery since Jessica arrived. It started with one of those dangerous hours where I was cuddling the baby with one hand and browsing Pinterest with the other. I don't know how I found it now, as is the way with Pinterest, but I came across an embroidery designer I'd never heard of before: Kelly Fletcher. I followed the links through to her pattern store and was blown away. There were so, so many patterns I could have started right away. I pinned quite a lot, and then picked my favourite, an alphabet sampler, paid my money and printed it off.



This is my progress so far: A-D but no wheels! I've now received the threads I was missing, so there's no excuse for the wheels to still be missing. I'm loving the challenge of this piece. Because Kelly's designs are rooted in Jacobean crewel-work, she uses a lot of raised stitches in her designs - no backstitch here! I'm getting happier with my stem stitch and I think I've mastered corners, but this evening I tried bullion knots for the first time. Nope. Not a hope in a hell! They got cut out and satin stitch was used to replace them!

I haven't made as much progress on this piece as I could have because I've been distracted with two other, smaller embroideries. First up is the parental advisory embroidery I stitched up for a friend celebrating her thirtieth birthday. It's not necessarily something I would put on my own wall, but is so perfectly her that I couldn't resist!


And then another quick stitch was this J for Jessica. I stitched up the A from the same alphabet a couple of months ago for Mia and had picked out the thread at the time. This is Jessica's first hoop for her nursery. The thread is from the new DMC Coloris range.


And we'll finish up with a snuggle time selfie!


Comments

Lin said…
Hi Jennie. Your alphabet is going to be gorgeous. Do persevere with the bullion knots - you do need to work in a hoop to get the tension right but they are so lovely. Great picture of the three ladies! xx
Wendy said…
I've been an admirer of kelly fletcher for a while, the alphabet pattern is lovely. Don't give up on the bullions, check out mary corbett's blog needle n thread. She has stitch videos
Love the J for Jessica!

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