My New Passion.. well kind of new..

It may not be any big revelation that my personality is manic and I have some major arty ADD. I used to stress and worry about these aspects of myself, but I think around the time I turned 30 and had two kiddos I stopped and embraced. I think some of the unique nuttiness of each of us is what makes us awesome. Now I could totally be rationalizing so I feel less insecure about my idiosyncrasies.. but oh well..

If it's not obvious, I'm pretty fascinated by embroidery and applique right now. I loooove that it something I can do outside the studio = more time with kiddos & hubby! I love the vintage, but not really traditional patterns like this one here that I blogged about earlier.

I've been slowly designing some patterns of my own, but I'm also loving changing art into embroidery. Since the girls & I are listening to "Charlotte's Web" on cd, I'm bit crazy about it. I adore the sweet cover illustration and have set out to embroider it. I think it would be fun to make one for each girl every year - maybe their favorite or most meaningful book that year? "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" is next on the roster for Baby.. I'll probably do some fun fusible applique & embroidery combo with that one.

  

I've also wanted to try more organic, less structured motifs. It also turned out that I haven't sent my belated birthday gifts for my two besties. Ack! I thought it would be fun to make some cocktail coasters with a cellular structure embroidered on them. My besties are both trained bio engineers - smary pants, eh?! 

What else is coming? 

I stumbled across this picture book at the library yesterday by Jennifer Adams. I'm quite the smitten kitten! Love, love it! I think I may try it as a wool applique.. Love it!

Some of my embroidery secrets..

*I don't always hoop. I know, such the rebel! I really like to use sticky stabilizer sheets on the back of the fabric and found that hooping really isn't necessary when I use it.

*My favorite thread/floss/pearl cotton right now is Valdani and the wool thread from Aurifil.

*When I do trace designs on to fabric, I don't use a washable or iron off pen. I love to use my mechanical pencil. I have found that even with a single strand of DMC, I'm still able to cover it without any issue.

So addicting and so fun!