We need tea towels too, so I decided to embroider one to brighten up our kitchen.
When I doodle, I draw waves, and it occured to me that my waves would make a simple embroidery project.
Next time I'll make the waves smaller, so you can see more waves when the towel is folded. I'm also interested in adding white caps and maybe a boat or a squid.
This is my artistic process for embroidery (I don't recommend it):
I remember that I like emboridering things. I decide to make someone a gift with a simple design on it. I start embroidering a tea towel or something else that I have on hand. I get carried away with all sorts of intricate possibilities. I get overwhelmed. I delay. I realize I only gave myself a half hour to finish the project before giving it away. I finish the project while Michael waits for me at the door. I spray the project with water so the lines from the embroidery hoop might go away before I hand it over. I hope the fabric dries in time. I don't wrap the gift so it might dry in time. I get bummed out that I didn't make something more intricate. I think about that one wonky detail (damn you, blue heart). I give the embroidery project away. I realize that even though it's simple and wonky, it's still cute. Usually I forget to take a photo at this point, but this time around the recipient had some fun props that I couldn't resist (Happy Birthday Zoe!).
These towels involved free-style embroidery, which made me really nervous. And then there was the task of finding an appropriate font for the newly-wed couple. I'm not sure about the one I chose in the end, but I do like the humorous twist that I took at the last minute:
My "J" and my "M" aren't entirely obvious representations, so you can see why I felt some assistance was in order.
I'm not the only one who likes the idea of using embroidery to write stuff on fabric, like names or global truths. Robyn made this towel for my Christmas present. Thanks buddy!
Following Robyn's lead, I captured a simple observation when planning the text for my last embroidery project, which I already featured on Tentative Plans. I want to embroider I'm a human baby on my next baby gift.
Because I'm in school right now, I don't have a lot of time for crafts. When I saw an ad for embroidery supplies at Sublime Stitching in Bust Magazine last summer, I imagined it might fulfill my need for an easy creative outlet. I needed something that didn't take a lot of planning and that could be finished quickly, in order to receive maximum satisfaction for minimal effort.
After hemming and hawing about it for a few weeks, I decided to order all of the supplies I'd need, including needles, sharp scissors, a hoop and a floss (thread) palette, to see if my instincts were right. I also threw in some iron-on patterns, colourful tea towels and a baby bib for my baby nephew for good measure.
After the success of my first project, the bib below, I declared that I would give only embroidered gifts to my friends from that day forward.
It turns out that I know too many people to make that declaration a reality, but I'm still embroidering almost a year later. It's actually easier than I imagined possible, and it allows for creativity if you want to stretch. Just choosing and arranging patterns requires a certain amount of imagination, but if you want to move beyond Jenny Hart designs (I started out with the patterns available in her book Sublime Stitching), you can free-style, draw your own images with tailors chalk or look elsewhere for patterns; Craft recently drew my attention to the unique patterns in the new book Doodle Stitching by Aimee Ray.
Another thing that makes this hobby appealing is its portability. As with knitting, I can throw my projects in my purse when I head out to meet with fellow crafters. In fact, I think it's better than knitting because it appeals to me year-round. I only get the itch to knit in the fall and winter.
The last thing I want to emphasize is the adaptable nature of embroidery. So far I have embroidered tea towels (like the green towel in top photo), pillow cases, baby bibs and baby blankets, but I haven't even skimmed the surface. I have tentative plans to personalize my clothes, and one day I would like to take on bigger projects to frame. Jenny Hart and Aimee Ray both illustrate the range of possibilities that embroidery allows for: while encouraging and enabling beginners, their websites show us how far you can take the craft. Um, Dolly Parton anyone?
