La Catrina for charity

My amazing older sistar, Emily Dolton, does fabulous murals & room make overs for kids with special needs in the San Diego, CA area through an organization called Cecily's Closet. They are currently working on a charity auction called “Style in Motion” to benefit the Rady Children’s Hospital Down Syndrome Clinic and DS Action on June 28, 2014. My mom & I decided to help out.

Calling all artists/ artisans

I believe they are still looking for artists & artisans to help out. If you are still interested check out the post on the Cecily's Closet  Facebook page.

Me as La Catrina

La Catrina is the beautifully dressed skeleton symbol of El Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). My sistar thought she would be a good subject for me to embroider. Since I do portraits, I decided to use one of my own self portraits as a basis for the skull. I then added some of the typical elements, the spider web forehead, the flowers for eye sockets, the skeleton mouth...

Transferring the pattern onto the jeans

Because the aqua jeans were so thick, I had to score the pattern in order to transfer the pattern onto the pants. This process was a bit time consuming, but worth it in the end.

La Catrina pattern transferred on to the jeans

Final embroidered portrait of La Catrina

The jeans are a size 18W skinny jean by Lane Bryant in aqua. The embroidery is outline stitch in black cotton floss (DMC #310). The fundraiser is set for June 24, 2014.

Modeling the finished product

This is an original pattern. Please do not use without permission. Thank you.

Happy Stitching!

One Direction quilt project- Niall

Niall is the only member of One Direction who is not British. He is from Mullingar, Ireland. Because of that, I decided to add an Irish flag & the Union Jack to one of the blocks. I also added the 1D logo and one of Zayn's tattoos. For more on this block, check out one of my previous posts.

Cartoon 1D with signatures for the quilt

Fiona chose Niall & his blocks to be embroidered in DMC floss #904. It definitely reminds me of Ireland, even though it has been 15 years since I was there.

I've shared this block before as a work in progress. See it here. Below is the finished block.

Niall playing the guitar in embroidery

I think it came out great based on the image I created the pattern from. I didn't quite capture his quiff, but I like it just the same.

Niall playing guitar in Live While We're Young video

Kiss You lyrics sung by Niall

I think these are the funniest lyrics in the entire song. Again, I added a guitar for Niall, because I was not embroidering a chin. (Or drool, for that matter.)

Niall's name is complete- starting on Zayn

& for those of you who like to see the underside of embroidery...

Showing off my stitches

Next up is the member I, personally, think has the best voice... Zayn!

One Direction quilt project- Liam

Today I am featuring Liam Payne of One Direction.

The image below is to give you an idea of what the original image looks like & what the Sketch Guru image looks like. I usually use the "SimpleSketch2" option in the app. I find it gives me best mix of strong outlines & finer details.

Liam Payne and image used to create the pattern

From this sketch image, I create the embroidery pattern. Sometimes I draw it right on the fabric, as is the case with this project.

Traced out on the fabric

I didn't use my light box for this because the lines were so sharp. I just laid on my bed with some good overhead light & traced away.

Finished block of Liam all ironed

Using the trusty outline stitch, I embroidered Liam in purple- DMC floss #327. My favorite part of this is Liam's chevron tattoo peeking out from the arm of his sport coat.

Liam's name in my handwriting

Below is Liam's lyric block with the lines from "Over Again" that Fiona picked out. I traced Fiona's hand & embroidered the outline in light purple- DMC floss #209. Adding Fiona's hand made this quilt even more specific to her!

Liam's lyric block- Over Again

Up next... the boy from the Emerald Isle- Niall.

One Direction quilt project- Louis

The One Direction Quilt Project is advancing quite well...Today I am featuring Louis Tomlinson!

Louis singing

In consultation with my very opinionated daughter (I have no idea where she gets that from!), we chose this image of Louis (twitter: @Louis_Tomlinson).

Creating the pattern

I used the app Sketch Guru again, then using a pencil, I traced out the line drawing/ pattern directly on the bamboo/ cotton fabric.

Embroidery in process

Breaking out my trusty hoop & needle, I got to work (outline stitch, of course). Fiona chose DMC floss #334. You can see the finished block below.

Finished block

Louis named embroidered on a group block

Above is Louis' name that I wrote out directly onto the fabric. I say, make it more personal & use your own handwriting, or create your own font to use.

Below, I used a modified font for the random uppercase letters & my own handwriting for the rest. Fiona chose the lyrics to be featured based on some of her favorite songs.

Lyrics Louis sings from the 1D song Nobody Compares

Stay tuned... Next up: Liam!

National Embroidery Month

Since February is National Embroidery Month, I have decided that I must embroider every day for the next 28 days... Well, 27 since today is the 2nd. This is a sacrifice I will have to make for the sake of my craft! LOL

My current project is one for my daughter, Fiona. She is a HUGE One Direction fan, Zayn Malik being one of her favorites.

cartoon version of One Direction*

*Not my drawing. My daughter found it on the Internet while searching for 1D iPod cases. This project is for personal use only.

Zayn, Liam, Niall, Louis, Harry

This is the photo I decided on for the next piece of the project. Since I wanted them to look as realistic as possible, I decided to try a free app called SketchGuru for the pattern.

pattern created after SketchGuru

After I printed out the SketchGuru image, I used a Sharpie to outline each member of the band.

used light box and pencil to transfer pattern

Louis and Harry are finished

So far I have 2 of 5 guys finished. I am continuing with the colors my daughter chose. Apparently I am embroidering each member in their favorite color. What do you think?

Little Sistar present...

3 cousins circa 2005

This is based on a photograph I took of my nephews (brother's sons) & my daughter one Christmas at my brother's house. L-R Zachary (almost 6), Fiona (4.5), Schuyler (7). I usually just make a line drawing straight from the photograph, but in this case I had played with some software to create a coloring book type image. Don't ask me which one because I cannot remember, 7 years ago & all...

Below you can see I used my trusty light box & a #2 pencil to trace the image on 100% cotton- Kona. My little sistar has a rusty colored kitchen, so I used DMC Variations floss #69, my spring hoop & an I-have-no-idea-what-size needle. It was completed using only one stitch, outline.

Tracing image on Kona cotton

 

 

Embroidery in progress

The framing process

I put some Warm & Natural batting between the embroidered fabric and the mat board, then folded the fabric like an envelope using hot glue to secure the edges.

Below, I cut out a piece of acid free card stock (the kind used for scrap booking) & attached it to the outside of the frame using hot glue. I wrote a note on the back for my sistar using an acid free pen.

"TO: My amazingly talented little sistar! The best P.A.N.K.* my kid could ever have. Love Tisha (Ba-tricia) & Fiona 12/2012 aprilsongstress *Professional Aunt No Kids"

Backing with acid free paper

 The completed embroidery project ready for wrapping & shipping to Las Vegas, NV.

Project complete

P.S. She loved it!

Redwork grandkids for competition?

Another project I have been working on for awhile is to create redwork renditions of the grandkids for my mom. My grandiose idea involved me learning to sew and creating an entire queen-sized redwork quilt. Ha!

Well, I had 4 of the 5 blocks done, but never got around to the youngest grandson, until Mom got an email from some quilt guru saying she should submit a quilt or 2 for an upcoming competition.

Breaking out the photo I had chosen of my nephew Aidan's cute face I got to work.

outline on blown up scanned image

traced image on bleached muslin using light box & pencil

traced image on muslin compared to outline on paper

Once the image I wanted had been transferred onto fabric, I was ready to embroider. I used my favorite spring tension embroidery hoop, similar to the Darice hoop, & DMC floss #347.

back of project showing my stitches & spring tension hoop

project in progress using outline stitch

Stem stitch vs. outline stitch... check out this blog!



finished redwork square of my nephew Aidan



With all 5 redwork squares done, Mom can create her grandkids quilt. It won't be very big. She is making 8" or 9" Puss-in-the-Corner for the remainder of the blocks.

I'll keep you posted if it is chosen for competition!

Embroidery to match your fabric...

I can't draw to save my life. & here comes the but; the very big BUT!

I can color & I can trace!

& I can embroider.

So, what do I do when I want an embroidery pattern to match the fabric I am working with? Do I search through my stash of patterns, books, quotes, photos, & other random bits of ephemera? Sometimes, but usually I create a pattern from the fabric. Using the fabric as the base for my embroidery pattern ensures that it will match!

Step 1. Scan the fabric & save it. I save it to my Dropbox account so that I can have it wherever I go. Especially if I'm blogging on the go. Or need a new pattern while at a friend's house for tea.


Ghastlies Witch under embroidery transformation

Step 2. Print out the scanned image to the size you want, then trace the image onto your fabric. I taped the bleached cotton muslin fabric & paper to the window & used natural light. I almost always use regular pencil to trace patterns.

Step 3. Start embroidering. I mainly used an outline stitch with 3 strands of floss. The hair & face I used 2 strands & a modified back stitch. The DNC floss is a dark gray that looks like pencil (I don't recall the number). I used a rather old 6" spring hoop & what ever needle I had laying around.

Ghastlies Witch transformed

Step 4. Give it to your amazing mother to make it into whatever you or she wants! LOL! For me, this is true because I cannot sew. I'll have to take a class one of these days! Mom made it in to a tea cozy.

Embroidered front of completed tea cozy

fabric back of completed tea cozy

If you like the fabric, it is a series called The Ghastlies by Alexander Henry Fabrics. You can buy it a bunch of places, but I like Hawthorn Threads.