Hoop Extravaganza!!!

Soooo, I've been totally obsessing about hoop art recently and managed to purchase a large selection of hoops on ebay. I quickly started planning out what I wanted to do with them all.

I had a pretty bad day the other, one of those days where everything that could go wrong, went dramatically wrong. I decided that instead of being miserable I would stitch out the negativity in a bid to improve my mood!! Worked out pretty well to be honest lol :P Here is what I came up with:

Summed up my mood pretty well, and was a good way of using up loads of bits of left over thread that I had lying around. For the text I used the font generator on this website - http://www.stitchpoint.com/eng/tool/alph/cross-stitch-writing-tool.php

I've been wanting to stitch up something Emperor's New Groove related for a while now. I absolutely love this film. Most definitely one of my all time favourite Disney creations. Kuzco and Yzma totally crack me up throughout the entire film. Too funny. Anyways, I found some Emperor's New Groove colouring pages online, and thought that this one would make a good embroidery pattern.

I love him!!! Stitched up one of my favourite quotes from the film, using the colours of the text on the film cover.

Next I decided to add some Pagan themed hoops to my growing hoopla collection. I found a Goddess pattern I liked on Urban Threads (http://www.urbanthreads.com/) and stitched up using split stitch for the outline, and backstitch for the swirls in the centre. I then added a bit of crayon tinting around the edge of the hoop for more colour.

To go with the Goddess hoop I made a Green Man one. This pattern is from Aimee Ray's awesome awesome Doodle Stitching Motifs book (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Doodle-Stitching-Collection-Aimee-Ray/dp/1600595812), which I am totally in love with at the moment. Done in two strands of different coloured green thread. Used some crayon tinting here too.

Thanks for looking, V x

Under the Sea.

So, I have wanted to make a mermaid/ocean themed bit of stitching for quite a while now and had never quite found any patterns I liked before. I stumbled across Sublime Stitching - http://www.sublimestitching.com/ and the mermaid pattern they had and loved it!!

I decided that I didn't want it to be just a mermaid though, and started thinking up a total under water scene. I recently discovered Aimee Ray's (http://dreamfollow.com/) wonderful Doodle Stitching books. I absolutely love the Motif Collection book, so many fabulous little designs!! All the other sea creatures and waves are images from that book.

So after I traced all those motifs onto the fabric (which was the remains of an old bed sheet that was cut up to make costume patterns) I added some freehand bits of seaweed. Then the stitching began!! Most is just back stitch using two strands of thread, with some satin stitch also. Wanted to try and improve some of my embroidery techniques and this was the perfect oppurtunity to practise my satin stitch. Naturally, working for Disney, the mermaid took on the colours of Ariel, and then the whole thing started to go down a Little Mermaid theme. Well why not?! Ariel is a pretty awesome Disney Princess after all!! So I added my interpretation of Flounder and Sebastian, and no Little Mermaid themed stitchery would be complete without a dinglehopper!!

After the stitching was complete I thought it lacked a bit of colour so decided to crayon tint certain parts to make it a bit brighter. I covered Ariel's tail in sequins and added some to the waves to add a bit of sparkle to the whole thing. I then framed it in the hoop, after wrapping some blue ribbon around it as the hoop was a boring pale pinkish colour. I've been admiring the many amazing hoops on Craftster (www.craftster.org) for a while now and thought this would make a good addition to the start of my own hoopla wall. Here be the finished article -

Can't wait for it to go up on the wall now!! Nice to work with lots of colour for a change :D :D Thanks for reading, V x

Lady GaGa inspired hoop!

So, I am totally in love with Lady GaGa at the moment. I find I have the new album on pretty much constant repeat. Yesterday, after watching far too many youtube videos of her on TV shows I decided some GaGa stitchery had to be made! It was watching this vid that I got the inspiration - http://youtu.be/Jh53Ykumt2o (Totally awesome video of GaGa on the Paul O'Grady show :) )

Aaaaanyway, her live performance of Hair is just fantastic on that clip so wanted to use lyrics from it on the hoop. "I just wanna be myself and I want you to know, I am my hair." I didn't have quite the right shade of turquoise felt in my stash so decided on using white for her hair. Stitched a square of blueish felt onto the black, then stitched the white hair and sunglasses on top.

I stitched some metallic silver thread to the shads to add a bit of blingyness. Then started on trying to make the hair look more like hair. I tried to make sure that the fringe was quite defined then added random lines wherever a felt to make it more hair like. Made a bow out of some left over white ribbon and stitched that on top :)

I then freehand stitched the song lyrics around the edge as I went along, and added some sequins for a bit of sparkle.

The excess material at the back was then trimmed down, and the remainder was stitched tightly together to pull the front of the hoop tight. It only took a few hours to complete :) i'm quite pleased with how it turned out. On quickly becoming addicted to hoopla craftiness after all the amazing ones on Craftster - http://www.craftster.org/

Thanks for reading, V x