It's really a bit early for the next freebie – I usually post them in the first week of the new month. But just now I thought maybe we needed something to distract us in these difficult times, so here's a little lamb, just in time for Easter.

The Easter lamb

He's quite a large design – for the 5 x 7 inch (130 x 180 mm) hoop. The body and head are appliqueed on, but there's no stitched border to the applique, so the raw edges of the fabric tend to fray just a little bit. But this only adds to the woolly effect so I haven't done anything to change it.

If you stitch it out, you may think I haven't optimised the colour changes. For example, I could have made the two "beige" objects (that is, ears and legs) stitch out at the same time, so you wouldn't have to change threads between them. But I've left it as it is so if you want to change colours for the two different parts of the design, it will now be easier

Here is the lamb (in .pes v.6), and here is the worksheet. So  - greetings to all, and I hope this crisis will soon begin to abate. Stay healthy!

Not far from here, on the Tarland road, there's a tiny old stone church perched up on the side of a hill. I've always thought that it looked sad and lonely, with boarded-up windows, but the other day I thought I'd have a closer look at it, because sometimes these old kirks have interesting stone carvings

 

The old Migvie kirk from the outside

Well, I have NEVER been so startled and amazed as I was when I pushed open the old wooden door. Bright lights flashed on and I found myself standing in a brilliant open space surrounded by beautiful works of art, all with a religious theme. Looking at the works I recognised the names of many local artists and craftsmen. I learned later that the kirk had been restored several years ago by the local laird (the owner of the estate), who arranged for all the works of art to be done by local people

 

Migvie kirk, inside

 

I could go on and on about Migvie Kirk and the wonder of finding a place like this in the middle of the barren Highland hills, but that would take pages and pages, so I'll move on to just one of the things that I found inspiring. Among the paintings and carvings, there was this simple little plaque.

 

The little Migvie plaque

 

Of course anything with birds on it is going to get my attention, and I liked the simple composition. It didn't take me long to do this version of the same thing. A bit more complicated than the original, perhaps, but it still reminds me of that tiny kirk, suffused by beautiful light and sitting peacefully and silently in the Aberdeenshire hills

 

The result of inspiration!

 

It has a peace that we could use now. I wish all blog readers the best possible health, and I hope that you can stay calm and happy among all this stress and disorder

For various reasons I'm not able to post most of the designs which I've been working on recently, so I'll just carry on with the series of bag designs I did for Cherri some time ago. These all involved flowers in what you might call a folk art style, although really they're just a little too sophisticated to be called real folk art. But they're attractive enough, and not TOO sophisticated!

Here's the first one

and here's another with flowers in a similar style

There's not really a lot to say about these – they were simple and fun to do, and didn't require a lot of thought. The circular "format" of a conventional flower lends itself to all sorts of interesting patterns and textures, and of course you can use just about any colour combination you like, and it will still (probably!) turn out fine

Now, I probably won't be posting regularly for a while. Part of the problem is that I'm trying to get to grips with PEDesign v.11. I've used PE Design digitising software for something like 20 years now and it's become something like second nature to me. However, v.11 is different. It was doubtless intended for commercial digitisers, and those who digitise simple things like clip art, because it has a lot of features which would be useful for them. Unfortunately those features are of no use whatsoever to those who digitise more intricate and "arty" designs, and indeed they often get in the way of more expressive digitising. So I'm having a hard time of it. Don't misunderstand me – it's an excellent and powerful software package, and I can hardly blame the company for trying to appeal to the commercial market. But I'm finding it tricky to adapt it to what I want it to do, so it will be a while before any new designs appear

I really enjoy going over the server statistics for this blog, because they list sites which have sent me readers. If I check these sites out, I can find out a lot about other embroidery blogs, and also the various forums that share information about free designs.

Recently I came across one forum that was new to me, and I found that one person had said wistfully that she wished I'd put up my recent folk-art rooster as a freebie. Well, as I said, your wish is my command! It's true that I might put up the whole folk art collection for sale one of these days, so maybe I shouldn't be giving the designs away. However I always give one or two freebies away with these sets so I might as well start with the rooster, and give him away now. I posted him originally on the 30th of January, but if you missed it, here he is again

 

The folk art rooster again

 

Here's the design file (in .pes v.6), and here's the worksheet

By the way, let me repeat that if you have any ideas or requests for freebies, please tell me. Just post a comment to the blog and I'll get it. For various reasons I may not always be able to oblige, but who knows – you may get what you want!

I keep a file of interesting designs and shapes and colours which I often use as inspiration for new designs, and one of these images is of these little Art Deco bookends.

Original Art Deco 

I love Art Deco style, so when my friend Cherri asked me to produce some designs to be used on bags, I immediately thought of this little piece. The "theme" of the bags was to be birds, animals and flowers, and here were a couple of little birds just waiting to be used

So I turned the little sculptures into a pair of birds, together with some flowers, but they were of course looking away from each other, and somehow that didn't really work. The composition was OK but it just didn't "feel" right.

Art Deco embroidery version 1

So I turned them around, and that was better, but all the same it didn't really hang together as a composition – probably because of that big gap in the middle.

Art Deco version 2

 

So I filled the gap up with flowers, and it was a lot better.

Art Deco version  3

I'm not saying that it couldn't be improved further, but it was fine the way it was, so this was the final version

By the way, these pictures aren't real stitchouts – they're images that are lifted straight from the digitising software, which is why you can't see the appliqué fabric that would normally make up the bodies of the birds. I know I'm lazy to be using this cheat's shortcut way of making images, but I really couldn't face stitching this out three times!

 

 

 

I love “folk art”. It may sometimes seem primitive and naïve, but it can also be very uninhibited and honest. And I love the wild, bright colours that you so often find in folk art – there’s no worrying about the “colour wheel” or “toning values” here!

At the moment I’m working on a big panel, which will be composed of an assembly of designs inspired by folk art. I’ve finished a few of these already, but I’m beginning to think more about what I’m doing, and where the folk art inspirations came from. Take the example of a little rabbit that I’ve just finished

An embroidered rabbit for the folk art project

Unsophisticated, colourful, but where did the idea come from in the first place? Rabbits are common enough in “primitive art” – for example, this little wooden carving of a rabbit is typical of much American folk art.

A simple rabbit from the American folk art tradition

It’s beautifully observed – quite realistic, with naturalistic colours. But of course it’s not what you could call colourful.

On the other hand there is the vital, vibrant tradition of Mexican and Talavera folk art. This rabbit could hardly be called naturalistic!

A different rabbit, from a different tradition

In this case, the realism of the animal takes a back seat to wild and unrestrained patterns and colours. The animal shape could really be seen just as a platform on which to display the wonderful patterns

So which is best? The clear-sighted and considered American folk rabbit, or the way over-the-top Mexican version? Of course, neither is “best” – they’re just different and both beautiful. I suppose I borrowed the shape of my rabbit from the American tradition, but decorated him with some of the ideas from the Mexican artists. So it’s somewhere between the two kinds of art – and there’s nothing wrong with that!

Recently I've been suffering from an overwhelming urge to digitise an alphabet. Goodness knows where this unnatural passion came from – I think maybe I was inspired by some old Renaissance alphabets, rather like these

 

Renaissance – or maybe medieval? – lettering

 

Whereever the idea came from, I spent many very enjoyable days digitising 26 leafy letters, based on a kind of modernised Renaissance style

A modern Renaissance alphabet

 

(By the way, I did do the whole alphabet – I just left out the Y and Z in this image, so that the others would fit happily into a rectangle for the scan)

Now – here's a note for the digitisers who read the blog. While I was working on these letters, I discovered something very interesting. Usually, when I digitise something complicated, I start with a drawing or sketch, which I then bring into my software to use as a template for digitising. For example, here's a sketch of the letter "D" which was supposed to be a template for a digitised "D".

The letter "D" in the usual kind of pencil sketch for a digitising template

 

But then I discovered that I didn't need pencil and paper at all – I could easily use digitising software to sketch the design straight onto the screen right from the beginning. For example, here I used a plain running stitch in vermilion to draw the leaves in the design.

 

I could then just digitise it as usual, using green for the design, and then delete the vermilion sketch afterwards. In fact, it was a lot easier to use digitising software than pencil, just because it's a lot easier to change a digitised image. If a line isn't right, if an angle is wrong, if a curve needs adjusting, it's so much easier to do it on screen, rather than mess about with eraser and pencil. And then of course you can always save several versions of your work, just in case you want to go back to them later. So you never need to lose anything!

Since I discovered this trick, I now usually draw things directly on the screen, with a "running stitch". I may do a very rough preliminary sketch of a subject, just to remind me what I want to do, but the main drawing gets put down straight onto the screen

 

A few days ago, when I was rooting around in some really old files full of things I'd done many years ago, I came across some of my old tapa designs. The tapa design style is native to the Polynesian islands, and typically is made up of geometrical shapes which are painted or printed on to bark cloth. The style sometimes includes animal motifs but these are mostly turtles and fish, which is natural enough seeing that the designs come from Polynesia.

An authentic Samoan tapa cloth

Some time ago I did a lot of tapa inspired designs, including some non-traditional subjects like horses and a crocodile, and I thought the croc might be good as a freebie. It's quite a large design – for the 5 x 7 hoop (130 x 180 mm) and the animal itself is 7 inches (180 mm) long. The body and tail are appliqueed on, so you can use exotic fabric if you like, just to emphasize his Polynesian ancestry

 

An inauthentic tapa crocodile!

 

If you want to try him out, the design file (in .pes v.6) is here, and the worksheet is here

 

I'm currently obsessed by LARGE embroidery designs – and I don't just mean things embroidered in large hoops. I love big, complicated composite designs – the kind you get by stitching lots of little designs together – as you can see by all the bellpull and panel designs I've posted through the years. Well, I'm currently going through yet another panel-and-bellpull phase

And I'm combining this passion with another enthusiasm of mine – that of folk art. I love the extravagant images and over-the-top colour combinations you see in folk art pictures from all sorts of cultures

So this means, of course, that I'm now working on a big folk art panel. I've only just started it so there isn't much yet to see, but I can post some of the little designs that will go together. For example, here's a cheerful little rooster done in a quite improbable folk art style. 

 

The first of many, I hope

In case you were wondering, the square of stitching around the rooster is just there so I can align him properly with the designs that will come next to him. Now all I need to do is finish the other 15 or so designs and I can start putting them together

At our recent NEOS show, someone asked me if I could digitise and stitch a gecko. Nothing simpler, I said cheerfully. There is nothing I enjoy more than drawing and digitising animals, and little lizards can be a lot of fun to do. I used to keep lizards as pets so I have a good idea of how they look and move. So I did a simple decorative little gecko – but the customer didn't really like it: it was  too much like tiger stripes.

Tiger stripes…

So I tried to think of something different, but it's difficult to come up with ideas in a vacuum. I had no problem with her not liking it – that didn't bother me at all. After all, tastes differ! But I really didn't know where to go for the right idea. But then the customer reminded me of an old lizard design that I'd done some time ago, which she liked.

 

The right lizard…

So I adapted it to the little gecko, and everything was fine.

The right gecko

The gecko is now adorning the cover of a notebook that she made for a friend. I just hope the friend likes geckos!