Design Dilemmas and the Magic of Social Media Feedback

What do you do with designs that go nowhere?

Last spring I started work on a bunch of ideas for possible projects to celebrate the Royal Wedding. I stitched and shared a simple cross stitch sampler pattern and put lots of work into this design for a cute embroidery pattern...

... but then I ran out of time and it never got made and now I'm not sure what to do with it.

Over the years I've worked on a LOT of sketches, doodles, prototypes and project ideas that never turned into anything. This is just part of the creative process! I usually squirrel them away for the future because you never know what might end up being useful as source material for another project, or what might end up working after all when you revisit it with fresh eyes in the future.

This particular design, however, was so specific that I was convinced that it wouldn't possibly ever be remotely reusable. But I also really liked how it had turned out thus far and didn't want to just chuck it away (and have, as a result, wasted all that work).

So, after finding the pattern in a pile of paperwork this weekend, I posted this pic on Instagram and Facebook and asked everyone: "what the heck could I or should I do with this??? "Should I take the time to neaten it up a bit and share it on my blog in case there are some Harry & Meghan fans out there who'd like to (very belatedly) stitch themselves a wedding souvenir? Or just recycle it??"

And, thank goodness for the magic of getting feedback via social media, because everyone immediately had such great ideas.

Some people suggested sharing it to celebrate their upcoming anniversary, and lots of people suggested updating the pattern slightly so it could celebrate Meghan and Harry's baby, which is due this spring (I had totally forgotten that they're expecting a baby!). This could totally work for the royal baby!

Other people suggested doing something just with the lion and unicorn on their own (maybe even adapting the whole design to be a customisable nursery sampler)... which I had somehow not thought of as a possibility??? I do love those little guys, though, they're just so cheerful and sweet and the unicorn took me absolutely ages to draw (because I am the world's worst person at drawing horses). I'm picturing the lion holding birthday balloons, maybe? Or the unicorn standing next to an awesome rainbow birthday cake? Something happy and fun and colourful, anyway.

What do you guys think? I'd love to hear which of these suggestions you like, and if you have any more ideas for ways I could revisit this design and (finally) turn it into a finished project. 

UPDATE: this embroidery pattern is now finished and available in my shop!

 

 

 

 

Making a Patchwork Quilt: the hand-quilting is FINISHED!

Remember my patchwork quilt?

This quilt is officially my longest running work in progress: I started it way back when I was a teen, which is so long ago that if the quilt was a person it would now be a teenager itself, definitely old enough to drive a car and maybe technically an adult by now (yikes). 

After a flurry of quilt-making enthusiasm when I was a student, I put the part-finished quilt top away in a cupboard for years. When I rediscovered it in a box in 2012, I thought about just getting rid of it but that felt a bit wrong so when my mum said she liked it I decided to try and finish it as a gift for her. I got the quilt top finished by 2014... then put it in a box again and didn't look at it for another four years.

Last year I was full of enthusiasm for Finally Finishing long-running projects (including a patchwork blanket and another quilt), so in the spring I bought wadding, white backing fabric and white quilting thread ready to complete the quilt.

I washed and ironed the fabric and put the quilt sandwich together (if you're not familiar with quilting, this is the step when you put all the layers together ready to sew them) then started the hand quilting in the summer.

Now, I don't know if you've ever done any hand quilting but it's a seriously labour intensive process and a very repetitive one! It's also not exactly the ideal project to work on during the hot summer months (and last summer really was hot). So, after making a start I ended up taking a break for a couple of months... but I did a big push this autumn to put the hours in and managed to finish the quilting at the end of November. Woohoo!

I thought the Christmas quilt I made my sister took a long time, but this one is a bigger quilt and made up of smaller squares so I had a lot more (and longer) lines to stitch so there were waaaaay more hours of stitching to put into this quilt.

The Christmas quilt was also a lot neater than this one: I'd used a proper block for marking out the squares for the Christmas quilt and cut and sewed them super neatly. The squares for the old patchwork quilt were a lot more randomly sized - and sewn together rather wonkily, too! I started out the hand quilting using my previous method of using masking tape as a guide line to stitch along... but I soon abandoned this to stitch freehand, following the not remotely straight lines of the "squares". So, all the quilted lines on this quilt are pretty wobbly (and my stitching isn't that neat to begin with, I have so much respect for people who manage to do neat hand quilting because mine all turned out so messy!) but hopefully this just adds to the quilt's handmade charm rather than detracting from it.

I'd originally hoped to keep the fact that I was finishing this quilt a secret from my mum (so it would be a big surprise when it was done) but I soon realised that this was going to be impossible, simply because of logistics of hiding something that big. So I told her about it and we've spent many happy hours sitting watching TV and movies together in her living room while I stitched and stitched and stitched. Sometimes this fella kept us company, too.

I've mostly kept the quilt stashed in her spare bedroom, working on it in bits and pieces when I went round to visit. I took it back to my flat a couple of times thinking I'd be able to really focus on it and push the project forwards but this turned out to be a terrible strategy because I'd spend the whole evening hunched over the quilt, stitching away happily while listening to podcasts or audiobooks and the next day my neck and back would be very angry with me!

For the Christmas quilt I stitched pairs of lines at a time, working steadily outwards and marking off each pair on a neat little chart as I went. For this one I worked a bit more haphazardly, sewing out from the centre but stitching several lines at once. I didn't make a chart to track my progress this time, just laid the quilt upside down on the floor at regular intervals to get an overview of how much stitching was left (the stitched lines are much more visible on the back than the front as they stand out against the plain white instead of getting lost in all that colour and pattern).

By November 20th, I'd stitched out to the first two corners of the quilt. It was amazing what a difference finishing that first corner made: it suddenly started to feel like an actual quilt instead of just a big bundle of fabric.

 

 

 
Excited by the prospect of finally getting this baby FINISHED, I devoted the next few evenings to quilting. I got the third corner finished on the 22nd...

... then started on the fourth and final corner. I couldn't resist laying it out to take a few more "in progress" photos before the quilting was finished.

Having the end in sight felt great!

Sewing these final few lines was definitely the most enjoyable bit of the quilting process (hand quilting is so boring, you guys! oh my goodness!!), and I was full of glee when I tied off the last stitch that weekend.

Even though it's now been over a month since I finished the quilting, I still haven't taken any photos of it "finished" and ready for the binding.

I have trimmed off most of the excess wadding and backing fabric (another step that's made it look much more like a real quilt), bought a fabric sample card so my mum can choose the perfect colour for the binding fabric (this important decision is still in progress but she's currently leaning towards blue), and sold the quilting hoop to a friend (because frankly, I plan on never hand-sewing another quilt as long as I live!!!).

Once my mum has decided which colour she wants for the binding, I'll measure the quilt and order enough fabric plus some matching thread. Then it'll be time to get started on the final stage! Maybe this time round I'll actually follow the instructions properly (unlike last time)? Watch This Space.

Behind the Scenes: Working on New Bird Patterns

I'm slooooowly working on turning my old felt bird designs into printable sewing patterns for my shop...

... transforming them from things I've made (with my own weird methods of doing things) into things other people can easily make (with sensible processes, clear instructions, updated pattern pieces, etc).

I added the first bird pattern to my shop this autumn: the robin!

Each of the felt bird patterns will come with a matching embroidery pattern, so I'm busy designing and stitching those, too. Here's the robin embroidery:

Progress is being slowed by all the DIY projects I've got in progress (which are both time-consuming and distracting!) and by the truly terrible quantity and quality of the daylight we've had lately (which makes photographing project steps very tricky!).

Hopefully I'll have some more birds in my shop soon (I will, of course, announce all the new patterns here on my blog and in my newsletter), but in the meantime here are some sneak peeks of the work going on behind the scenes.

I've been sketching embroidery patterns (choosing flora to accompany each bird and making all the patterns work well together as a set = a fun challenge!)...

... cutting out lots of felt pieces and sewing lots of birds as I work out the best way to describe each step...

... and getting stuck into lots of embroidery!

This is the greeenfinch, half-finished. I'm so pleased with how those fir tree branches have turned out.

Here's a slightly blurry snap of my bullfinch embroidery, from a day I was stitching while surrounded by workmen making a lot of mess and noise!

I think I might need to re-stitch this one as I'm not 100% happy with the flowers but We Shall See. Sometimes these magically things turn out how you picture them in your head, and other times they need a bit of tweaking and prototyping to get things just right.

I definitely need to buy some more embroidery hoops so I can get all of the embroideries framed up as I finish them! I've got lots more to stitch but I'm really pleased with these so far, both individually and how they look as a set.

Can't wait to get them finished so you guys can stitch them too! Watch this space...

Christmas Ornaments in Progress

I thought you guys might like to see how I'm getting on with the final four felt ornaments I'm making from Alicia Paulson's lovely patterns...

If you're a regular reader of my blog you'll know that I've had some of Alicia's Christmas ornament kits for years and am finally making an effort to get them all stitched and ready for Christmas.

I finished the first seven this summer...

... then finished another four a few weeks ago:

They're large, double-sided ornaments, with lots of pieces and details to stitch but I'm getting there slowly!

I've almost finished the Gingerbread Girl; I just need to embroider her face, add the ric rac hanging loop and stitch the front and back together.

I'm waiting for a day when I'm feeling particularly focused, as I don't want to mess up the little details of her face!

I also need to add the face to the Notevena Mouse...

... and give him some feet, of course!

I've been deliberately leaving the fiddliest bits of these ornaments until last, skipping ahead of Alicia's instructions to do so (tsk tsk). For example, I should have stitched the little candle in the Lighted Window already, but there's been no harm done by leaving it until later.

If you're ever going to skip ahead with a tutorial, you should - of course! - read the instructions all the way through to make sure you're not going to cause yourself any problems later on. Sometimes the order things get stitched in is just a matter of personal preference, but sometimes there's an important reason why you need to stitch X before Y and if you stitch Y before X you'll end up in a pickle.

Really, you ought to read the instructions all the way through before you start stitching at all and definitely before you start cutting anything out. I foolishly didn't do this when I first began work on these patterns. I just went ahead and cut out all the pieces based on the colours and quantities marked on the template sheet.... and now I am, as you might expect, in a bit of a pickle.

I shouldn't have cut out the Whistling Tea Kettle shapes before embroidering the design, so my tea kettle is now going to end up with some extra layers of felt or fabric in the middle as I'll need to tack the shapes to some material so I can place them in embroidery hoops and stitch the flowers.

Not ideal, but hopefully it'll work out okay and I'll have a lovely finished tea kettle ornament to show you guys soon!

Click here to find all these lovely patterns on Alicia's website.

Click here to find lots more Christmas crafting ideas in my tutorial archive.

My Current Project: Sewing Felt Christmas Ornaments

I've spent my spare crafty time this summer sewing Christmas ornaments!

These charming designs are by Alicia Paulson - I've long been a fan of her blog, Posie Gets Cozy, and bought a whole bunch of her felt ornament kits back in 2012 & 2013. I've resolved to "finally make these in time for Christmas" several times since then, but with very little to show for it... until now!

I'm on a mission this year to finish up lots of my UFOs (UnFinished Objects), those personal crafty projects that have been hanging around in the back of cupboards and under beds for far too long.

I finished the Christmas quilt I was sewing for my sister (which I started in 2014) and the patchwork blanket I've been slowly making with leftover yarn (started in 2011), and my scrappy cross stitch project (started in 2014) is nearly finished, too. I've even finally started quilting the patchwork quilt I began way back when I was a teen almost two decades ago.

During our unexpectedly hot summer (it's been ridiculously hot) I definitely didn't want to spend my time curled up under a cosy quilt... but I also didn't want to lose my Finishing All The Things momentum. It was the perfect time to dig out these long-neglected Christmas ornament kits!

I adore these ornaments but they've ended up being put on the back-burner because my personal projects usually get squeezed into evenings when I'm too tired to focus on this kind of detailed work or to follow instructions (this is why I tend to do a lot of simple crafts in my spare time, like knitting basic blanket squares - I don't have the brainpower to manage anything else!).

I'm now determined to devote the time and focused attention to these ornaments that they deserve and finally get them all finished "in time for Christmas". 

I've completed seven of the ornaments so far (after a frankly embarrasing number of years) and have another eight still to go. The remaining ornaments are all in various stages of completion as I've been stitching a bit here and a bit there depending on what I've felt like working on. Here's a peek at some in progress:

It's been a really interesting experience working on these. They're similar to my own work in that they're ornaments made from felt (which is something I've made a lot of over the years) but they're also very different... and I'm really not used to following someone else's patterns, instructions and methods instead of just finding my own way with a project!

Weirdly I think I'm more proud of how they're turning out than I am of my own designs - maybe because I can love them wholeheartedly instead of having all the usual complicated feelings about my own work getting in the way? I'm loving making them, anyway.

Here's a closer look at the Little Deer and Snowy Tree ornaments. If you're thinking I probably started with these because they're the simplest: you'd be right!

The ornaments are double-sided, so you do all the steps twice but mirrored. It's double the work but you get a doubly lovely end result.

Here's the Cozy Cottage, New-Fallen Snowflake, and Polar Bear.

 

The polar bear is a bit different to these others, as his back is the actual back of the bear instead of a mirror of the front. I love his little knitted scarf - it's definitely the smallest thing I've ever knitted!

I keep changing my mind about which ornaments are my favourites, but I particularly love the Red Wool Coat and the Norwegian Selbu Mitten.

The coat with its tiny mittens is just completely adorable, and is making me daydream about buying a red coat of my own this winter (I do need to buy a new coat...). The Norwegian mitten is gorgeously detailed, and was my first introduction to using waste canvas to cross stitch on felt/fabric. It was so easy and fun to work it (and so satisfying pulling out the canvas threads at the end to reveal the finished pattern), I must try and design something of my own using it. 

Like the polar bear, these two ornaments aren't mirrored but have a different design on the back. Aren't they lovely?

I'll hopefully have some more snaps of finished ornaments to share with you guys soon... I wonder how many I'll manage to make by Christmas?

Want to stitch these ornaments yourself? Click here for Alicia's ornament patterns! 

Scrappy Patchwork Cross Stitch: Another Colourful Work-in-Progress.

As well as having an actual patchwork quilt in progress, one of my other UFOs (UnFinished Objects) is a cross stitch homage to patchwork quilts: a colourful patchwork of blocks stitched from Xs of thread instead of fabric.

I started this cross stitch back in 2014, as a way to make use of those scrappy bits of leftover embroidery thread which aren't big enough to be worth keeping but still have a few stitches left in them.
 
By March 2015 I'd stitched 23 little blocks of colour...

... and by June that year it had grown to 40-something blocks and looked like this:

I've been working on this in stops and starts over the years. I save up thread scraps when I have them, then sit down to add a little batch of blocks when I've got a decent amount of thread saved up.

I guess I could add a block at a time, each time I have a piece of leftover thread, but I quite like spending a few relaxing hours working on this from time to time. Plus, adding a bunch of colours at once helps me make the randomness of this project more of a controlled randomness - I can spread out the colours more easily, and get a more pleasing mix of tones and shapes than I think I would end up with if I added a block each time I had a scrap of thread to use up.

I like the randomness of this project and how the colour palette (and the speed at which it's growing) is entirely dictated by what other projects I'm working on, and the luck of what size thread scraps I'm left with... but I also want it to be something I love the look of when it's finished!   

By October 2015 it looked like this...

... and it grew a little in July and August 2016.

I didn't photograph it for a while, just quietly collected leftover threads...

... and added blocks in little batches, until it December last year when it looked like this:

That photo ended up being really popular on Instagram after it got featured by A Beautiful Mess (very exciting!) and quite a few people asked me for the pattern. I don't think this is something I could really do a proper pattern for, though, as I'd have to find matching colours for soooo many random bits of thread.

I am thinking about drawing a chart of the blocks when it's finished (in case anyone wants to copy the exact pattern of shapes I've chosen) but really the best way to replicate this project would be to use your own leftover threads from your stitching projects and make your own unique patchwork piece. I find it a really relaxing project to work on, and it's hugely satisfying creating something so colourful from scraps that would otherwise have just been thrown away.

At the moment it looks like this:

As you can see, I've decided to make this piece a square one instead of filling the whole of the fabric. This is because a) I think it looks great as a square (and it'll look fabulous when its framed) and b) I wanted to reign it in a little so I don't end up cross stitching little coloured blocks forever.

Now there's a limited number of spaces left to fill up, the end is in sight... but who know how long it will take me to actually have the scraps (and the time) to fill them and get this piece finished!