Blue Geisha

Last Christmas I spent ages looking around for the perfect pattern to stitch up for neighbour as a Christmas present. I found this pattern in a magazine full of beautiful Joan Elliott designs, and knew I had to make it.



It is such a beautiful pattern! I think there were about 40 colours in this, and it took around 2 months of on and off stitching to complete. Is mostly all full cross stitch, but with a few quarter stitches around the face and hands.



She was so much fun to stitch and watch come to life. I tended to work through this design one colour at a time, which helped me find the pattern easier to follow. If you can get hold of a copy of the Joan Elliott Ultimate Collection magazine I really recommend you buy it. It is full of absolutely beautiful patterns, and I wish I had the time to make every pattern in it!!



And finally, here's a picture of the finished cross stitched all framed and ready to go.

This has been one of my favourite pieces to make, and I am still so happy with how she turned out :)

Vicki x

My First Craftster Swap

I recently took part my in my first ever swap over on Craftster. I have long admired all the awesome things posted in the swap gallery and have wanted to participate in a swap for ages!

It was the UK Only Swap and I was paired up with an excellent partner, who shared my love of hoops, which was great!! So this became very much a hoopla swap.

Here's the set of hoops that I made -



I came up with these three hoops after reading through my partner's questionnaire. They were great fun to make, even if I probably would never have come up the idea of making them without this swap.



I was given a link to my partner's favourites list on Etsy in her questionnaire. I spent ages looking through the many favourites, and this hoop is based on a lovely art print I saw on there. It is made entirely from felt. I added buttons to the moon as my partner said she loved them. The little stars are french knots done in two strands of thread.



In the questionnaire it said that my partner was going to be volunteering at the Olympics in London this summer, so I thought that it would be nice to make something as a reminder of this. I drew the pattern onto cotton, the hoops are stitched in two strands of thread and the writing in three. It uses mostly back stitch and satin stitch. The satin stitch on this took forever as it was so tiny. I wrapped the hoop in ribbon to make it more colourful.

Here's a close up of the satin stitch on the hoops -



I'm now in the process of making another 2 of these hoops!!! So no escaping the tiny satin stitching just yet!!



This was the third and final hoop that I made for the swap. My partner loved birds and bright colours so thought this would fit that theme. I found the inspiration for this whilst browsing through Etsy. Stitched on yellow linen, with felt applique for the branch and birds eggs and the birds are done using back and satin stitch. I wrapped the hoop in black ribbon as I thought it looked better than leaving it wooden.

Usually when I make hoops for my hoopla wall I don't bother to do anything to the back of them. Seeing as I knew the backs of these would be looked at, I thought I had better make sure that they looked neat and tidy, so I did this -



I was really pleased with how these hoops all turned out, and thankfully my partner loved them too. The package I got from her in return was TOTALLY AWESOME!!!! I absolutely loved all the hoops she made me -



My list of likes and interest was pretty epic. She decided to work with one theme - mermaids, and then run that through several other themes on my list. Those being Harry Potter - one of the mer-people, Disney's Little Mermaid, and a Lady Gaga inspired mermaid. I love them all and they look awesome up on my hoopla wall.

I really loved my first swap and have definitely got the swapping bug - have already signed up for my next one :D

Vicki xx

May Round Up

Once again I'm a bit late in my monthly blog round up, so apologies!! Getting the new house sorted took longer than I thought, and it has been a busy month at Embroidery Emporium HQ!!

I haven't crossed off much more on my 50 Projects list, but it has been a very productive month.

34. Actually get enough courage to do my first swap on Craftster, instead of just reading all of the awesome ideas on the swap board and never entering one.

So I finished my first swap on Craftster and have already signed up for a second one!! I really enjoyed my first swap, and was lucky to be given a fantastic partner to swap with! Here are the hoops I made for my partner -



She loved them so I was really pleased! And I received the most awesome swap package back from her too!! I'll do a separate blog post with more pics and info on the hoops :)


35. Go to more than 2 events this year.

We attended our first event - May Spring Pensthorpe, at the start of the month. The event was great fun, despite the dreadful weather, and I finally got to wear my new Viking outfit which was great!! It was really comfortable to wear and helped keep me warm during the event.



I finished the wedding sampler I mentioned in my last round up and am really pleased with how it turned out. Made a good start on the baby sampler to. The Hunger Games cross stitch is still ongoing, and I've made loads more hoops to go up on my hoopla wall, so much stitching has been done :) Hopefully I'll get a chance to update the blog some more this month :)

Vicki x