Doesn't time fly! We're into October already so it's time for yet another freebie. You may remember that a few weeks ago I reluctantly posted the picture of a project that I was NOT pleased with – a collection of seven pots with flowers. But the problem was with the way the I had organised the overall composition – there was nothing wrong with the individual designs. So I thought I might pass some on as freebies, and here is a pot with pansies

The first flower pot

There are a couple of things to be aware of. First, there are a lot of jumps between the various parts of the flowers, but this was necessary for technical reasons. Also this is not a perfectly symmetrical design. The pansies flop further over the right-hand side of the pot, which means that the pot isn't centred exactly in the frame. This may be important if you're using the design together with others, for example as part of a quilt. Finally, the pot is appliqueed, and there is then an area of overstitching and finally a satin stitch border around it all. However you can leave out the overstitching if you like and just use the satin stitch. Personally, I usually like the effect of overstitching, but if you're using an interesting fabric for the applique, you may not want to blur it with a layer of overstitching

Anyway, here is the design (in .pes v.6) and here is the worksheet

Well, I've nearly recovered from spending last week at our annual NEOS (North East Open Studios) exhibition. I always spend the week at the exhibition with my embroidery machine, showing people how it works and explaining machine embroidery. It's always a lot of fun but I don't understand how just sitting and talking should be so exhausting!

One of the pieces I exhibited was a cheerful Mexican-inspired panel, which started life because of my friend Cherri's current fascination with sun faces. I designed a few suns for her to use in a quilt, and while I was doing it decided that they reminded me of sun faces in Mexican folk art. So I thought about using some of them myself in a Mexican panel. I'd already designed a lot of Mexican folk art-inspired designs, so I assembled four of the new suns into a small panel and surrounded them with bird designs from my old collection. Then, just in case it was looking too simple, I designed a further outside ring of plant and flower designs, and started to stitch everything out, intending to exhibit the finished panel at NEOS

However time began to catch up with me. Just the four suns and the 12 birds came to 16 squares to be stitched together, and if I'd added the outer ring of flowers it would have been 36 separate designs in total, and I just didn't have time to do all that. So I just left it at 16 birds and suns, and I might add the outer ring of flowers later

The Mexicana panel

The photo is of the unmounted panel, but here it is framed, along with another piece, a vase of flowers that I haven't yet posted here. So now all I have to do is find the time to do the final 20 squares and sew everything together…

 

The Mexicana at the exhibition

 

OK, here it is – part 9, the last part of birds-and-leaves wall hanging. If you're new to the blog and haven't yet seen this project, you can find a picture of the whole panel at https://theaccidentalembroiderer.typepad.com/the-accidental-embroiderer/2019/05/a-big-freebie-project-.html

I've been posting parts of it every month or so after that until now, when we have the final part of the panel. So that should be the whole panel passed over to you, and I hope you have good luck with it!

Now, do you perhaps have any good ideas for a freebie that you'd like me to do? I'm always open to suggestions for new designs! I can't promise definitely to do something specific but I'll certainly give any ideas serious thought

Meanwhile, here is the file for part 9 of the birds-and-leaves panel (in .pes v.6) and here is the worksheet. Good luck!

At the moment I'm desperately trying to put together a collection of pictures for our annual NEOS (North East Open Studios) exhibition, which will open at the end of the month. If you're on Facebook, you can have a look at our exhibition preview

https://en-gb.facebook.com/ArtInTheBuchat

Anyway,  I've been going through some of my recent embroideries looking for things to exhibit, and have come across yet more of the good old familiar subjects – like for instance birds! I seem to do more birds than anything else, and here's a nice colourful one that's leaving bits of coloured light behind him. I haven't a clue what brought this idea on – probably watching the birds flying through the trees around our house and seeing flashes of light behind them as they broke through the thick leaves

A flying bird in colours

Now – last week I wrote in a very depressed mood about a big panel that I'd spent a lot of time on and which didn't turn out very well. I had a lot of VERY kind comments from people who said it probably wasn't as bad as I thought, and a couple of them actually wanted to see it for themselves. Well, OK, you asked for it! (well, some of you did anyway!) so here's the prodigal panel

Could do better…

There are seven large designs, all stitched separately. The designs themselves aren't all that bad, if a bit ordinary, but I just didn't put them together right. For example, look at the top right-hand pot, with the blue flowers. The pot just seems to be floating in mid-air, and not standing together with the other pots. And the painted background is too "noisy" and complicated, so that it overwhelms the flowers. And then there are the technical problems. If you look at the fabric around the single red rose, you can see a lot of wrinkles where the background fabric is rucked up. And then there are…but I won't go on!

Oh well, you can't get everything right all the time, and I've learned a huge amount from this experience. And I'm really grateful to all those kind people who were so encouraging!

 

 

Well, that was a pretty depressing couple of weeks. For the past month I've been working on a really large panel – it measures 25 by 15 inches, and involves seven different large designs, and you can imagine the work it took to digitise and put together. But last week I got it finished – and it's AWFUL! It really is just a mess. It's certainly colourful, but that's about all you can say about it. That's the problem with this kind of embroidery – you really don't know what something will look like until it's finished, but by then it's too late to change it. Oh well, now that I can see what I did wrong maybe I'll try it again, and hope that it will be easier (and better!) this time. Meanwhile I really need to post the next two designs of the bird-and-leaf panel.

If you're a newcomer to the blog and haven't yet seen this project, a picture of the whole thing is at https://theaccidentalembroiderer.typepad.com/the-accidental-embroiderer/2019/05/a-big-freebie-project-.html. After that I posted two parts of the design every month, and today we have the 7th and 8th part of the design (the first and second designs in the bottom row)

Here is design number 7, and here is design number 8 (in .pes v.6) and here is the worksheet for design 7, and the worksheet for 8

Well, it's July and time for the next two parts of the big birds-and-leaves project. Just to remind you what the completed panel looks like, it's at https://theaccidentalembroiderer.typepad.com/the-accidental-embroiderer/2019/05/a-big-freebie-project-.html. This time we have blocks 5 and 6, which are: the central block in the second row (with two birds) and the third panel in the second row (all leaves)  Block 5 is here, and block 6 is here (both in .pes v.6) and the worksheets are here (for block 5) and here (for block 6)

Now – just to let readers know that for a while I won't be posting as regularly as I usually do. This is just because I'm working on several large pieces, all of which take a lot more than a week to finish, so I'll only be able to post them when they're ready. Which will take several weeks!

 My friend Cherri (https://www.instagram.com/cherriberi1/) has developed a "thing" about sun faces. She's asked me for a lot of sun designs that she can incorporate into a quilt, and she started it all off with a request for a BIG sun which she could stitch on the back of a jacket. Here it is:

Cherri's sun

You can see from its size relative to the jacket that it's a big design! It was done in 5 parts. There are four files for the rays, each file with four separate rays which are stitched in a circle, and then a big sun face to go in the middle of it all

To be ruthlessly honest, I find sun faces just a little bit creepy, even if I draw them myself. But this one is cheerful and bright and maybe not too bad, so maybe if I look at it long enough I'll get to like it…

 

First of all, MANY apologies for not posting for so long. For a while life was just too manically busy for me to have time to write, and after that we lost our internet connection for some time, which was, of course, a major problem. However things seem to be back to normal now (touch wood).

So – where were we? I'm well overdue for the next instalment of the freebie so I'd better get on with that. Today we have the next two squares of the big birds-in-a-tree panel. If this is new to you, have a look at the first post in the series, at https://theaccidentalembroiderer.typepad.com/the-accidental-embroiderer/2019/05/a-big-freebie-project-.html

Today's files are numbers 3 and 4, which are the top right square of the panel (the yellow and orange bird) and the left-hand square in the middle row (all leaves)

Here is design number 3 (in .pes v.6), and here is number 4. Here's the worksheet for 3, and here's the worksheet for 4