Avengers Assemble!!

After being too apprehensive to join a Craftster swap for many years, I am now hooked after participating in my first swap (the UK Only Swap) last month. So as soon as I saw they were doing an Avenger's swap I absolutely had to sign up for it, because the Avenger's are just awesome!! The swap organiser was brilliant, and managed to pair me up with someone else who was in the UK, so I was able to avoid posting my parcel abroad which I was very grateful for.

I was so excited about this swap!! As soon as I received my partner's questionnaire I immediately started to brain storm ideas. Her favourite character's were Iron Man and Thor, who also happen to be my favourite Avenger's characters too :D She also said she didn't have a phone case, and that she liked hoopla's, which made my choices of what to make pretty easy :D

I give you, the Iron Man phone case!!

I had so much fun making this and it was so hard to part with!! This is the back of the case. The case is made entirely from felt, and the features on the Iron Man face have been embroidered. I also embroidered the ribbon strap.

The front of the case has the Avenger's logo appliqued on. This was stitch a mission to cut out in such a small size! Was definitely worth it though. I then stitched a mini arc reactor onto the closing flap. Again, the arc reactor is made from felt, and it has been embroidered in a strand of grey, and a strand of silver metallic thread.

The flap closes with two press studs, and the case is lined with yellow felt to make it nice and strong. The top of the case is blanket stitched together in contrasted thread. I am totally going to have to make myself one of these cases :D And I am very tempted to try and make a version for each of the Avenger's characters.

This was the first hoop I made for my partner. I downloaded the pattern, which has most of the Avenger's characters on it, off the Wee Little Stitches blog. It is free to download, and was great fun to stitch up.

I changed some of colours on the Thor pattern, and used metallic thread to make it shiny. For the wording I mixed together letters from several other Wee Little Stitches patterns I have, to create the phrases that I wanted on the hoop.

As my partner said that she loved Thor, I stitched up this little version of Thor's hammer/mjolner. It was a really quick hoop to stitch up, think it took just over an hour to complete. The hammer is made from felt and stitched onto black linen. I embroidered some details onto the hammer with metallic silver thread, and then wrapped the hoop in some sparkly silver ribbon.

To finish both the hoops off I cut out a circle of felt, and stitched it to the back of the hoop, to cover the lacing. I also stitched a little card onto the back, with the information of the swap on it.

The final item I made for my partner was this Hulk inspired keyring. I am forever loosing my keys in my Tardis of a bag, so always use a really big keyring, which in theory, makes the keys easier to fish out. I designed the pattern for this myself. It is done on aida and then stitched onto some black felt which I blanket stitched together.

I was so happy with how all these item's turned out, and thankfully, my partner loved them all, so I was uber pleased :D

I wrapped all the items in tissue paper and added some little labels to each one before I packed them all up and sent them off!

I think I have definitely caught the Craftster swapping bug now!! And am already looking for another swap to join :)

Vicki x

Hoop Bonanza!

I am totally obsessed with making hoops to go up on my hoopla wall at the moment!! Since I've moved house my hoopla wall has definitely expanded :D :D Here are the latest additions to the wall.

Gotta Catch 'Em All!

I have nearly really grown out of my love of the Pokemon games/world, and still spend far too much of my time playing the games on my DS. I bought a job lot of hoops from eBay a while ago, and in the set I has some some red plastic hoops, and immediately thought they would make a good Pokeball hoop! Mostly made from felt with a black band of ribbon running through the centre. I wrapped the bottom half of the hoop in white felt, to finish off the pokeball!

I am loving all things Viking themed at the moment, so when I saw this pattern on Urban Threads I knew I had to make it :D The Viking face is stitched up in mix of one strand brown and one strand of green thread. I then free hand stitched some runes around the edge of the hoop and added some bright green seed beads for some more colour.

This was another awesome Urban Threads pattern. I'd been meaning to make a pagan themed hoop for my hoopla and I loved this pattern. It was a pretty quick hoop to stitch up, and was done using back stitch. I then crayon tinted the pattern to make it more colourful.

And here's what my hoopla wall currently looks like!! :D :D

June Round Up

So it's been another productive month at Embroidery Emporium HQ! Lots more hoopla's made for my hoopla wall, another Craftster swap completed, and due to too much sewing I ended up having to take over a week off from stitching due to my hand being incredible painful and annoying! Anyway, here's what I have been up to.

5. Finish Jack Sparrow WIP.

Well, after sorting out my craft room and trying to tidy and organise everything, I finally find material and thread for this. Now just to find the magazine with the pattern!!

39. Expand the range of embroidery stitches that I feel confident with. (Currently only really happy with back stitch and satin stitch)

I've been working really hard to try out and experiment with other stitches that don't feel as comfortable with. I've been working on my French knots, long and short stitch, speckling, stem stitch and been using surface couching. I definitely feel a lot more comfortable with French knots now, and am no longer scared to use them in my work!

41. Take better photographs of my work.

I bought one of these awesome light boxes after Christmas, and now that we are finally all settled into our new house, I finally have the space to set it up properly and use it more for taking photo's of my work.

43. Be more active on my facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Embroidery-Emporium/115006128541419

My Facebook page is definitely the best place to keep up to date with projects that I am currently working on. It gets checked and used everyday and is usually the first place I upload finished project's to.

So I successfully managed to cross off a few more things from my 50 Projects list, so slowly getting through that at last, as well as completed lots of crafty projects not on the list, which will all get there own blog as soon as I can organise myself

Vicki x