A Valentine Card

My husband was working late last night, so I seized the moment and made my valentine card.  I always go for the 'quick and simple, but effective' route and what could be simpler than a couple of hearts embroidered onto a card.  I also embroidered a little heart onto the  envelope... just as a little sneak preview!

I left the tails long and just tied them in a bow at the back.

Have you done yours yet?

Free Lavender Embroidery Transfer

Have you harvested your lavender yet? We don’t have much in our garden, but are lucky enough to have a friend who is happy to pass on her harvest. It means a chunk of evenings are spent hand threshing a massive pile of the stuff… the smell can become quite overwhelming!

What I am left with though is a wonderful stock of lavender for various projects, and where better to start than with some good old lavender bags for your drawers! These are great for gifts… dare I talk about Christmas?!

Last year I worked up this embroidery pattern for lavender related sewing and thought I would share it.

To download the pdf, please click download it from within the articles section on our website.  Just click here and click on the pdf icon.

Pencil rolls for all!

I made up three of these pencil rolls, two for gifts and one for my son. We often take pens out and about on trips to the cafe, doctors or when we go away. I wanted a permanent roll that could be slung in a bag at short notice. Now, I know these rolls are not a new thing, many versions can be found in blogland, but they are an essential piece of kit!

These were made up from a pattern in Joelle Hoverson’s ‘Last-Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts’. I am making my way through this book and so far it seems really spot on. The pictures are glorious and the projects are varied and inspiring, and great for beginners. I found the instructions very clear and the whole thing was very easy to make, particularly if, like me, you skip the patchwork interior!

The light blue pencil roll uses Candy Blue Klona Cotton and Amy Butler’s Martini Spots Green, the red one uses Cardinal Klona Cotton and Valori Wells’ Monarch Cinnamon, and the yellow one uses Corn Yellow Klona Cotton and Anna Maria Horner’s Cathedral Royal.

I also personalised them for the boys by embroidering their first initial on the front of each roll using the free Alphabet Embroidery Transfer mentioned in the previous post.

Alphabet Embroidery Transfer

My favourite way to embellish my sewing right now is embroidery. It is so simple and pleasing. I can happily stitch away during the evenings and in snatched moments during the day.

I have found myself stitching letters a lot, and particularly like one alphabet for this purpose.  I have recently used it to make a wall hanging for the kids’ bedroom.  The yellow fabric used is Maize Klona Cotton.

I have pulled together a free download for you to use as a transfer. There are upper and lower case letters, and some common punctuation. There are normal copies and reverse copies depending on how you transfer your images onto your cloth.

You can find the pdf download within our Articles section on the website, or go directly to it here. 

Let me know if you use the transfer for anything. I would love to see your creations... Happy stitching!