Well, I haven’t been doing anything particularly noteworthy recently – at least nothing that’s worth posting – so perhaps I’d better ask for forgiveness by offering another freebie. This one won’t be to everybody’s taste, but perhaps if you know a child (or even an adult) who likes chickens, you might find a use for it

 

A free funny chicken

As you can see, the main part of the chicken is made with applique. I used a brown and yellow streaked fabric for the one in the picture, and of course I chose the colours of wing, tail etc. to tone with the fabric. If you use another colour for the applique you should choose colours that suit your choice.

Here is the chicken, in .pes v.6. It's for the 5 x 7 inch (130 x 180 mm) hoop. Good luck with it!

For various reasons I’ve been spending the past couple of weeks working on designs which mostly feature flowers. I’ll get round to posting them eventually, but as most of the designs that I’ve posted recently have been pretty much all floral, I thought I’d try to put up something a bit different, just to make a change

A pair of non-authentic Celtic fish

I’ve always loved Celtic patterns, and in the past have done a lot of Celtic knots and animals of various kinds. This is the result of some experimentation that I did a while back, involving a couple of fish with Celtic interconnections They’re not authentic by any means – just the result of a casual sketch – but I enjoyed doing them and they’ll probably come in handy somewhere, especially in this part of the world where Celtic design is popular

By the way, I might just explain to new subscribers that I don't post free designs every week, and this one isn't free. But I intend to make freebies available more often in future, so keep an eye out for them!

Well, I think I’m on the mend at last – at any rate I can get to the embroidery machine to stitch things out, which is an advance on how things were just a few weeks ago! Anyway, by way of apology for my long absence, here are a couple of floral freebies. They’re not complicated but might be useful on things like quilt squares

Both are for the 4 inch x 4 inch (100 mm x 100 mm) hoop. In the photos and in the .pes files, they’re done with backgrounds of appliqueed fabric, but the applique isn’t strictly necessary. You could leave it out if you prefer, and just use your main fabric as the background. If that’s what you want to do, skip the applique steps, which are the first three “colours” of the files

 

Bright flower number 1

 

Bright flower number 2

Here is number 1, in .pes v.6. And here is number two

First of all, thank you so much to those readers who wrote to wish me a speedy recovery from the injuries I sustained during my recent fall. Things are improving – slowly, but at least they’re improving! But I still haven’t been able to sit long at the computer so I don’t have any really new designs to show you. However this one is reasonably recent – it was shown (and sold!) at our recent NEOS exhibition

 

The grouse in the bonny broom

It’s a pretty typical scene in this part of Scotland in June, when the broom is out. Scottish broom in full flower is quite spectacular – the hills and glens positively glow with gold. And it’s not unusual to see a grouse among the bushes pecking at the flowers!

I should just mention that until things are back to normal here I won't be posting very often. However I'll still be here and doing my best to work on new designs. And I wont forget about posting some new freebies!

 

 

 

 

I just can’t believe it – it’s been TWO MONTHS since I last posted. I do have an excuse, though – without going into details I had a bad fall some time ago which damaged my back and hip, and which left me confined to bed for some weeks. And it’s difficult to design and digitise when you’re lying flat on your back! Oh well, I think the worst is over now so I hope things will begin to get back to normal, and we’ll begin with a freebie for 2023.

Some simple flowers for 2023

It’s just a simple floral design for the 5 x 7 inch (130 x 180 mm) hoop, and I don’t think you’ll really need a worksheet for it. The yellow, harvest gold and deep gold colours are for the petals and the moss green and deep green are the leaves and stems. Here is the design in .pes v.6

Well, I have a LOT of work to catch up with but in future I’ll try not to leave so much time between postings. And I’ve promised myself to post a lot more freebies in 2023. Wish me luck!

At the NEOS show I talked with several people who wanted to know where my designs came from. I explained that they started with a drawing, and then I used digitising software to turned them into embroidery. Some people thought that it was just a matter of scanning in the drawing and simply clicking on it – it would then be magically transformed into an embroidery file.

Of course you can sometimes do this – auto-digitise software is certainly popular and it has its uses. But I find it very limited in what it can do, so I prefer to use the more “free-hand” functions of digitising software – what's usually called "manual punching".

 

A sketch for an embroidery design

 

For example, take this rough sketch of a flock of birds. If you tried to “auto-digitise” this, you would end up with a total mess. What you have to do is take it into a more advanced software function, and then just use the drawing as a guide to re-create the design from the beginning

The sketch becomes an embroidery

 

And this is the part that’s fun – using imagination and new ideas to transform something crude and simple into something with a bit more character

Now – here in the UK we're all becoming overcome by Christmas and Christmas preparations, and it's probably like that where-ever you are. So I will take a break from blogging until after the holidays, and will be back in the New Year with (I hope) a whole new repertoire of designs.

I wish all blog readers a happy and peaceful holiday

Linda (who noticed that the original Christmas angel had no wings) has very kindly stitched out the version with wings, and here he is. So now you can choose – with wings or without!

And thanks Linda for your work!

 

Sharp-eyed blog reader Linda has noticed that the Christmas angel I posted yesterday was missing his wings. There are several reasons for this, the main one being that I didn't have time to test-stitch the winged version. But I suppose you can't have an angel without wings, so I'm putting up a winged version of the same angel. Because I didn't stitch him out I have no picture to show you, but it's exactly the same one as yesterday with wings added

However bear in mind that it's possible, because I haven't tested it, there may be problems with it. Also the wings aren't mentioned in the worksheet. But they stitch out first and second, so after that you can use the worksheet

If you're brave enough to try it, here is the angel with wings

Well, it’s almost December and I still haven’t done anything about putting up a Christmas freebie. It’s true that I’ve designed and digitised a few new things but to be honest I just didn’t like them all that much. So I’m going back to an earlier time and an earlier collection of Renaissance angels, and have found this handsome fellow. He’s inspired by the work of some painter or other – can’t remember who just now – but he makes a nice appealing Christmas image

 

A Renaissance Christmas angel

 

He’s for the 4×4 inch hoop and so will be about the right size to fit onto a Christmas card. Where the design asks for “Deep Gold” (colour 1) and “Silver (colour 14) I suggest using metallic threads to give a really Christmassy effect

So – good luck with him, and I hope he may come in handy over the holidays! Here is the embroidery file (in .pes v.6) and here is the worksheet

 

Well, Typepad seems to be back to normal, thank goodness, so perhaps I can now get back to posting as usual. I haven’t yet shown much of what I exhibited at the NEOS show this year, so here are a couple of black birds in the midst of colourful foliage and flowers

 

Blackbird among the flowers

 

Crow in the oak tree

 

But aside from the exhibition, I’ve recently been working hard to put up some designs on the Secrets of Embroidery website. Have a look: https://secretsof.com/machine-embroidery/designs/The-Accidental-Embroiderer. I’ve enjoyed working with “collections” again – that is, groups of designs devoted to a single subject, and I hope to put up more collections in the near future. And the Secrets of Embroidery people have been really helpful and encouraging. But this blog is still of first importance to me. My first interests have always been thinking about and talking about designs, and trying to see how far this kind of embroidery can go. So I will definitely still be writing to the blog and will carry on offering free designs just as usual