Embroidery.... more embroidery... embroidery experiments... and some printed embroidery designs you can buy soon!

I'm still in embroidery mode. Witness:

Both of these designs are from Urban Threads.  The Mendhika Alphabet . I'm a little over half done with the blocks.

Worked with 2 strands of floss, in a 10" hoop, on a good quality flour sack dishtowel.

and so is this one (note that I embroidered Mr. Wino on the wrong side of the towel...). The design is free until Saturday, Jan 16, but Urban Threads designs are very reasonably priced even when they're not free.

My current Facebook profile pic...

and this one.

But I also have been designing. I had a yard of my Folk Art Santas printed by Spoonflower, but unfortunately, I chose the wrong fabric (it was too heavy for comfortable hand embroidery) and had to start over.

This time, I ordered swatches

Top: Heavy Cotton Twill, Lower Left: Satin, Lower Right: Basic Cotton (best for embroidery)

The printed cotton swatch- the lines are exactly the right width and color for stitching.

I used a 6" hoop and 1 strand of floss for this embroidery.

I colored the faces with crayon and set it with a dry iron (and paper towels to absorb the wax)

I love love love how this came out. The crayon did not wash out.

I colored the Cotton Twill swatch with Prismacolor pencils (more on them in a future post) and the outlines were redrawn with a superfine point, waterproof ink marker. The sizes are different on purpose (they can be ordered on swatches as bigger or smaller). I have fixative to make the pencil coloring washable, but I doubt this piece will be washed. I think it'll end up in a wall hanging.

This is the Fat Quarter Folk Art Santa set of motifs. My sample should be here tomorrow, and it can go up for sale at Spoonflower as soon as it arrives. You can order the Trio Santa swatch now, if you like, or wait for the fat quarter to be available (which is a much better bargain). These are all my original drawings, based on wood carvings I did in the  90's.

My Spoonflower designer name is grammak, and here is my shop (other original fabrics are available). I'll post an updated link when the Fat Quarter is up and running. I plan to put together at least one more Fat Quarter set of designs.

The Basic Cotton is good for embroidery and quilting. The Cotton Twill is great for coloring and painting, though I think you could embroider on it easily enough. I haven't tried the Satin yet, but I suspect it'll embroider up nicely as well.