Time for another free design. Recently I’ve been working on pieces for exhibition and because they’re not always appropriate as freebies, I’ve had to go back to the archives for ideas for free designs. Cherri reminded me about a group of chickens that I did a long time ago and mostly forgotten about, so here’s one of them as a freebie. As I remember, the idea came from some charming Chinese folk paintings that I found on the internet, and Cherri has stitched it out beautifully

A chicken for August

The chicken has two areas of applique: the body and the wing. The wing is appliqueed on top of the body applique, making a double layer of fabric over the wing, so it will be best to use fairly light-weight fabric for both areas. Quilting-weight cotton should be fine. There are a few unavoidable jump stitches but these can easily be trimmed after the design is stitched out

If you’d like this design, just drop a “comment” to the blog asking for The Chicken and I’ll send it out to you. If this is your first time of asking, please read the conditions on the “Free Designs” page on the menu above. And if I don’t get back to you within a day or two, please try again from another e-mail address. I reply to all messages, but sometimes messages bounce, so if I seem to be ignoring you, please try again

Besides the animals-with-text panels, I’ve been working on a series of tree designs for the exhibition. It’s turned out that each of the tree designs seems to represent a different season, although I didn’t plan it that way. The first was the trees in the mist, which had a very wintry feeling, and then there was the “magic grove”, which looks as if it might have been done in summer. Here’s the autumnal tree – a tree with turning leaves in the middle of a forest. It’s pretty simple and straightforward – just embroidered leaves on a painted background – but it does have a nice golden glow in the centre of the tree. This is produced by a very light and feathered understitching of yellow thread – it's a simple addition but it does add an interesting glowing effect

The Golden Tree with the glowing centre

I go along to a painting group once a week, as a way of keeping in touch with more conventional media, and to give me ideas and inspirations for embroidery. However everybody keeps telling me that my work looks as if it should be done as textiles – I'm not sure if I’m pleased or annoyed by that! Anyway I thought I’d take them at their word and interpret one of my paintings as an embroidery. The one I chose was a semi-abstract study of a pot plant – perhaps not the most exciting subject but the painting had some nice colours and textures.

The original painting

 The original painting was broken up into small areas of different colours and textures so I tried to repeat that in the embroidery. The background fabric was stamped with square motifs, and overstitched with areas of light stitching. The pot is made up of angular pieces of fabric stitched to the background, but with the edges left loose and rough. The leaves of the plant are done in more conventional applique

 The embroidery

Well, yes, it sort of works. But  having seen this I can see that I should have done the embroidery differently – maybe softening the edges of the leaves and integrating them more with the background. It’s a lot more static than the painting, and overall I think I prefer the painting. It just helps to confirm what I’ve always thought –that each art medium has its own requirements, its own strengths and weaknesses, and it’s not easy to translate from one to the other. Oh well, back to more straightforward embroidery projects

This month’s free design is another one from the archives. A long time ago I drew and digitised a series of Celtic animal, and this, I think, was my favourite. It’s two Celtic birds with the intertwined forms and scrolls that are so typical of much of Scottish and Irish art. For once it's not an applique, only embroidery. It's for the 5 x 7 hoop (130 x 180 mm) and there are 31,587 stitches. Note that there are quite a lot of jump stitches – it's impossible to avoid them in designs like these

The Celtic birds

To receive this design, just drop a line to the blog asking for the Celtic birds. If you are a new reader to the blog, please read the page "Free Designs" for everything else you need to know

This is another of those weird designs that just appeared out of nowhere. One minute I wasn’t thinking of anything in particular and the next, the image of an earnest birdcatcher not noticing that all his birds had escaped, appeared fully formed in my mind’s eye, so all I had to do was to copy the image in my head.

Looking the wrong way…

There isn’t really much I can say about it, except to point out that the background is done in dark, muddy colours and coarse appliqueed fabric so that the bright embroidered birds stand out clearly and, perhaps, act as a symbol of the brightness and beauty of living things against a grey urban background. And if you were feeling particularly philosophical, you might imagine that it pictures one of those moments we all have, where our eyes are firmly fixed on some far horizon while our real treasures escape in the other direction

Oh well, that’s enough philosophy for one day. Back to more mundane things 

OK, time for June’s free design, which is a simple seahorse that I originally did as a commission a few years ago. Normally I would never distribute a commissioned design, but the client has said that she’s happy for me to give it away (Thanks, Cathy!). It’s an applique design, for the 5 x 7 hoop, with 12,834 stitches 

Could be more interesting?

To be honest I think this stitchout looks a bit boring, but you could make it a lot better if you used more interesting fabrics and threads. For the original commission I used metallic threads, metallic fabric and a painted background, and the result was a lot more eye-catching than this version. But at least the fact that it's simple means that you can see the details of the design, and choose whatever colours and materials you think will work

As usual, if you’d like this design, just send a comment to the blog asking for the seahorse and I’ll get it out to you. By the way, if I don’t answer, it’s probably because the message I sent to you bounced – this happens quite a lot. So if I don’t reply, try again from another address

And yet another piece for the exhibition, this time part of the series of trees that I’ve been working on. It turned out better than I was expecting, partly because the painted background works well with the embroidery. The background was just done with acrylic paint applied thickly onto the background fabric, which was then put in the washing machine. You can’t see the details of the painting, but that’s one of the reason it works – because the background is misty and undefined. The trunks are appliqueed on with a coarse, painted fabric and the leaves are sketched in with areas of running stitching

The grove as it is at the moment

 After I’d finished this I realised that the trees looked a bit like human figures with upraised arms and now I’m wondering if maybe I should change it a bit to emphasise this resemblance, and give the piece a kind of mystic look. But for the time being it will just remain an ordinary grove of trees