Author: Mia

I know that many people don’t like bugs and beetles, and I’m not all that fond of them myself. But sometimes they are so unusual and distinctive in shape that I can’t help sketching them, and even using them in in designs.

Some time ago I got carried away and did a lot of funny-looking beetles embellished with various flower and leaf designs. Goodness knows where the ideas came from, and I can’t say that I’d ever use them myself in a quilt or a shirt, but I couldn’t resist doing them anyway.  Who knows – they might come in handy for some eccentric project

 

Three flower bugs

Now, I know I’m late with February’s freebie, but what with one thing and another things have been pretty busy here. Anyway I’ll do my best to get something up next week – and don’t worry – it won’t be a bug!

It’s been far too long since I’ve posted here, which was because of some health problems that stopped me from sitting at a computer. But luckily things seem to be getting better, so here I am again! Unfortunately just at the moment I don’t have much to show here, but there is a BIG project that’s been preoccupying me for a long time.

I don’t suppose many readers will know the city of Dundee, in Scotland, but if you do, you might have visited the little port town of Broughty Ferry, which isn’t far from the big city. There, not far from the banks of the river Tay, is a little cafe where we often have lunch. What I really love about this cafe is that the entrance hall is lined with shelves, which are stuffed with pot plants of every description  

 

The Wall of Plants (or parts of it)

This is only a small section of the wall, but you can see what it’s like, and see that a whole room lined with this kind of display would be spectacular!

So I got to work. I drew a big collection of plants in pots, all of different sizes and proportions, digitised and stitched them, and fitted them together into a rectangle. All together I used 19 little designs which, when stitched together, made a wall hanging of about 24 inches wide by 16 inches tall (61 x 40 cm)

And here is the result – at least the result as it is at present

 

Well, it’s a start…

You can see there’s a lot still to do. A few of the squares need straightening, the little boundaries between the individual designs need to be stitched in, and there needs to be a wide binding around the whole thing.

And one other thing is niggling at me. Since this has involved such a lot of design and digitising work, perhaps I should have made the whole thing a lot bigger. It wouldn’t have involved much extra work, and the result would have been a lot more eye-catching. Oh well, there’s time yet and I might just get round to doing a big version. Meanwhile there’s a lot of other things to catch up on, and a lot of new blog posts to plan. I hope it won’t be so long next time!

 

Well, that’s another holiday season over for another year. I always enjoy the celebrations but all the same, it’s good to get back to Real Life again, even though it’s been snowing continually for several days here, so we’re pretty much snowed in. But we’re used to that up here in the Scottish Highlands! Anyway it’s time again for a freebie

This is a little Art Nouveau inspired square – it’s a simple design but it could find a home in many different kinds of projects – quilts, decorative hangings, purses, table linen, – whatever your imagination suggests. It’s for the 4 x 4 inch (100 100 mm) hoop and it’s embroidery only, with no applique

 

An Art Nouveau square for 2025

Click HERE to email me and request this design, in .pes v.6  Incidentally, I’d really love to be able to feature more free designs on this blog in 2025, so if you have any ideas for designs you’d like to see, please do let me know. I can’t promise to do everything, but I always love to have new thoughts of what people want from this kind of embroidery

Oh – and a Very Happy New Year to all of my readers. All best wishes for 2025, and thanks so much for your support

 I hope you’ve just received my message with the two free designs. Actually there were supposed to be THREE free Christmas designs, but Typepad refused to let me post images of all three, so I’ve had to put the third one in this separate message. It’s just a simple Christmas star, but none the worse for being simple

 

If you want to make a card out of it, you will need a blank with an opening of 3 1/4 x 3 1/4 inches (80 x 80 mm), and the design itself will need to be stitched in a 4×4 inch (100 x 100 mm) hoop

HERE’S the design, in .pes v.6, and again. I really recommend that you stitch it all out in metallic thread. And I hope that’s the last free design I’ll be sending for a while now!

I’ve been getting more than a little anxious about this year’s Christmas cards. It’s not as if we have a huge list of people to send cards to, but I do like to send nice embroidered cards to as many people as I can. So the past week or so has been spent frantically painting fabric and stitching things out, and I thought perhaps other people might also like some new Christmas ideas. These are designed to be used on cards though of course you can do whatever you like with them

When I make cards, I buy blank cards of what are called “Tri-fold aperture cards” – if you Google the term you should find lots of suppliers. These are blank cards in which you glue your stitchouts behind a cut-out window and then fold the card together. These designs are designed to be used in cards with an oval opening of 3 x 4 1/2 inches (76 x 114 mm)  The digitised designs are surrounded by a vermilion “frame” in basting stitch, which shows where the opening of the card should fit. If this is of no use to you, just leave the frame out

HERE are the ornaments, and HERE is the poinsettia. Both designs are in .pes v.6, and will need to be stitched in a 5×7 inch (130 x 180 mm) hoop.  I very strongly suggest that you use metallic threads for the ornaments  – this really adds to the festive look of the design. The poinsettia should really be stitched mostly in ordinary thread, but you can use metallic gold for the ribbon (which is colour 2, Deep Gold)

Well, good luck if you try these! And I wish you a very happy holiday season. I’ll be back in January, with a freebie for the New Year.

Oh, and as always, if you have problems downloading these designs, just let me know through the “Comments” section of the blog

It’s occurred to me that I haven’t yet posted pictures of all the things I showed at this year’s NEOS exhibition, so that’s what we have this week. This is a first attempt of an idea that’s been haunting me for a while. When you spend a lot of time watching natural things like birds and plants and insects, sometimes they can seem to be turning into each other, That is, if you look at a mass of coloured butterflies fluttering above a bed-full of colourful flowers, it can be difficult to tell immediately which is which. So I’ve been working on some designs that use this idea, and this is the first one to be finished. I’m not sure just how successful it is, but it was popular at the show and I think it was eventually sold

 

Transformation

There are several other things in the pipeline that are along these same lines – I’ll post them when they’re finished

Now – in the good old days, I used to have no problems posting new designs here every week or 10 days – but that was when the things I did were a lot simpler! Today I work just as much on the designs, but the problem is that because they’re becoming larger and more complicated, there’s usually no way I can finish them off in just a week. So it’s just not going to be possible to post as often as I once did, for which I’m very sorry – I really enjoy posting and reading readers’ comments. But I’ll still post whenever I can, and will keep on putting up free designs every few weeks, so I hope you’ll know that I’m still here

It’s very strange but the first two blog readers to comment on yesterday’s free pigeon both said that if he were lonely, then all anyone had to do was to stitch him several times, and he’d have some companions

Well, if anyone actually wants to stitch a flock of pigeons, then the least I can do is to provide some of them! So here are two more from the same flock that will go with the first one

Two more for the flock

One word of warning – when I pass on designs to anyone I always stitch them out and watch carefully just to make sure that there are no glitches or problems with them. Of course I’ve stitched these two out, but as I never thought anyone else would be using them I may possibly have left one or two small mistakes in them. But even if I have, the quality of the final stitchouts should be OK

So HERE is number 2 and HERE is number 3, in .pes v6. As always, let me know if you can’t download them

 

November is getting on and I still owe you a freebie for the month. So – here’s yet another bird! Last year I prepared a really big piece for our September exhibition, inspired by the huge flocks of pigeons we see here benefitting from the farmers’ autumn flocks. The farmers may not like them, but I find them really attractive – the birds are beautiful in themselves, and the sheer size of the flocks is just breathtaking. So I did a picture of part of a flock for the exhibition

A flock for the exhibition

Although not everybody would want a big flock of pigeons, I thought that just one bird might be lucky enough to find a home somewhere. So here’s a single pigeon taking off, perhaps looking for his flock-mates

The lonely pigeon

It’s for the 4 x 4 inch (100 x 100 mm) hoop, and it’s embroidery only (no applique). To download it in .pesv6, just click HERE

As you may know, recently some readers have not been able to download these files from the blog. Most people have no problems, but for some others it’s just impossible. So if you are one of those, drop me a line via the “Comments” section of the blog and I’ll send the file to you as an e-mail attachment, which usually works. Good luck!

 

Anybody who reads this blog will know that I have a major obsession with birds. There are just so many things you can do with a bird’s image – it can be dramatic, artistic, colourful or natural, and still look good. So at the moment I’m working on several new collections of birds of different kinds, and here are two of my recent “Comic Birds”. They both started life as herons, as you can see, but they’ve rather developed into comic creatures

Maybe an ex-blue heron?

Yes, who would meddle with him, indeed!

Rather to my surprise, I sold that last grey heron at a recent exhibition. It was bought by an elderly Scots lady who for some reason took a strong liking to it. However she wanted me to add something to it – she wanted me to embroider the words “Fa wud meddle wi’ me?” underneath it. And if, like me, you’re not all that familiar with the Doric dialect (which is spoken in Northeast Scotland), apparently that means “Who would meddle with me?” said in a warning, aggressive tone of voice

As I’ve mentioned from time to time, I was brought up in a family of artists in Chicago. Among my parents’ friends was Max Kahn, a kind and gentle man, and a well-known artist and lithographer. Not only was I fond of Max, I liked his work as well

The other day I found an old card featuring one of Max’s lithographs, and it took me back to the old days when we would visit Max and his wife, artist Eleanor Coen, in their studio and see their recent work.

Max’s cat – the original

After some thought I decided to try and express Max’s idea in embroidery. I don’t usually copy other people’s work, but I didn’t think Max would have minded, and I thought that embroidery would express the texture of the cat’s coat and the little girl’s hair

A tribute to Max’s cat

I’m not sure if it’s a success or not, but it reminds me of those old days. Who knows – if he was still with us, maybe Max would have tried designing for machine embroidery himself!

Oh well, that’s enough of arty things. Next week I’ll be back to the more decorative