Embroidery as Embellishment- Amigurumi Crochet Butterfly, LadyBug, and Bee Dolls

Hi everyone! Yesterday I did not have any time to finish embroidering the little bears handbag or hat brim, so today I will treat you with a cute little group of friends. They are all done with only one stitch, the single crochet. I started with amigurumi (japanese style doll crochet, all done with the single crochet stitch) when hubby and I were displaced because of Hurricane Katrina. Hubby was US Coast Guard and we evacuated north to Alexandria, Louisiana on Coast Guard orders. We lost EVERYTHING in our house, were living in a hotel for a year, and I needed a hobby, art outlet, that was compact, little and took a minimal size of ‘stash’. I had revived my crochet just prior to all that, so, after surfing the net a bit, I found amigurumi. (There is more of this previous life on my ‘Other Realm Blogs’, see link in right hand column here…don’t forget to come back!) I love crochet. Now, I love embroidery. They are both equally pleasing to me and I struggle to decide which to play with when I am feeling creative. 😉

I found these adorable crochet doll patterns on Etsy. For Christmas, or was it my birthday?, I asked for these little patterns…and voila! I started creating them with much excitement! There is a dark hair, dark eyed, sweet butterfly, a gentle blond, blue eyed ladybug, and…a rascal, redhead, green eyed, bee. (My mom is blond, with blue eyes, Hubby is a redhead with green eyes…so don’t send me hate mail) The dolls are crocheted with sports yarn, hair is stitched with DMC floss. Only thing, I didn’t know how to embroider and I had to learn to do the hair and yes, all that embellishment on the butterfly.

I wanted my crocheted butterfly doll to be a butterfly we have here in Hawaii. (Did you know, we only have 2 butterflies here…) So, orange it would have to be. Believe it or not, the day I chose to embroider the little butterfly wings, behold, a monarch landed on our bougainvillea and sat there long enough for me take a long look at it. Talk about models sent from the universe!

I stitched along and am very happy with the butterfly and the hair of these little crochet dollies. The bee’s wings were fun to make and the little ladybug was a lot of fun too. The bee even has a little stinger! You can’t see it too well in this photo…but it’s there!(btw the little red lady bug is NOT a lady bug we have here either…we have the little black ones…) (oh, we don’t have the bumble bee here either, only the honey bee…)

They are so cute! They look like they are waiting in line…

I have several others in the ‘in progress’ bag waiting for their hair to be ‘grown’…I even have a dragon experiment in there that I created as a ‘variation’ of the pattern. I will have to dig them out and finish them, don’t you think?

Go and create something fun! Share it with me… I’d Love to hear from you…Your life needs fun. Go ahead, have some fun!

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Embroidery Project Update-Shoulder Bag Progress /Little Teddy Bear Chatelaine with Bullion Knot Stitch Daisies

Now that the little bear’s dress is embroidered, [see previous posts also] I went on to the little shoulder bag. I DID NOT cut out the little bag until AFTER the embroidery was done. (finally followed the directions, thank you very much!) It really was a lot easier to hold on to while the little bitty parts were still attached to the felt sheet. Those directions are there for a reason I guess. 😉

The little shoulder bag has a small bullion knot daisy embroidered in the corner with little french knot buds and forget-me-nots, detached chain stitch leaves, just like the dress. It uses the same flowers and stems, yet it all looks so different on the felt. (ah, the wonderful gift of embroidery…always different…)

My camera does some weird things with the color whenever using the flash, so I’ve posted 2 pictures to show the color and the stitches of this one.

Here’s the pocket that goes on the inside. (yes, the INSIDE…can you believe that!)

Here’s the little shoulder bag all folder up. It still needs its seems and strap and I’ll post those pictures after the project is completed.

The pink felt is for the lining of the little handbag. From what I can tell, the next little bag, the little “handbag”, holds a thimble. The dark green has the outlines for the little thimble handbag and the dark green hat and brim.

I’m off to embroider the little thimble handbag and the little hat. Hopefully I can post them here tomorrow, if not, I have some cute little surprises waiting to post their debut!

Until then, please comment or email. I’m always happy to see what other people are doing and always glad to help. Have some fun with your art! You life needs fun. Go ahead, have some fun!

Embroidery Project Update-Pocket Progress /Little Teddy Bear Chatelaine with Bullion Knot Stitch Daisies

Hi again! I managed to get back to the Little Teddy Bear. She needs her clothes!

I needed to get away from the computer to get back to stitching!

Read more about the start of this project is here on this blog. (Click link: Don’t forget to come back now!)

I managed more bullion knot daisies with more stem stitch on the front pocket. There are more french knot buds for the little buds and forget-me-nots. I followed the pattern and colors even though my material must be a bit darker than the one they used to create the sample. The greens for the stems and flowers don’t show up much, but, I still like it.

The back pocket is a cute litte felt cutout of a beehive stitched and stuffed onto the pocket, then embellished with chain stitch and blanket stitch. The little bees are french knots and the wings are done up with a gold cord I have. (could even be japan gold…I don’t even know…I found it in my stash)

The dark felt the little pieces are on is actually marked off with the little purse pattern that I plan to embroider next. You can’t see it much in the group picture up top, so I took a “flash frightened” one just to prove that I am tracing out the pattern pieces…and I will have to mantra NOT to cut the piece out UNTIL it is embroidered. Yes, I realized way too late that I cut the other little parts out BEFORE embroidering…which made it a little more wiggy to hold onto while embroidering. You would think I learned my lesson…yet, I did it a SECOND time…same mistake. So, this time, I am keeping the scissors far from me until I am done with all the stitching! Beginners mistakes.

Wish me luck on the progress.

Please leave me a few comments. I really enjoy reading them. Let’s me know that there is SOMEONE out there that may be gleaning some inspiration from all these pictures and posts. Hopefully it is as fun for you to read as it is for me to post. Your life needs fun. Go ahead, have some fun!

Beaded Embroidery Project-Beaded Berry/Berries Full Size Pincushion

While hanging out in my local, most favorite, stitchery store, Fiddlesticks (believe it or not, they do not have a website), my hubby found a great bead embroidery book. Beautiful Bead Embroidery published by Country Bumpkin.

Within it, there are projects for beaded berries. Which look like the cover of one of their Inspirations Magazines; Click Here to see berry cover. He was so enamoured with them…he couldn’t get over how real the berries looked and he was so impressed, he thought it necessary for me to have the book…and to embroider the berries.

Well, I’ve been through a beading phase, so beading, I can do. I opened the book, learned that the projects are for jar lids…and determined that a jar lid is not a useful project for me. So, I thought of my little bottle cap pincushions. Yet, a bottle cap pincushion just seemed too small for a cluster of berries to either sit up top of or to hang off the sides of. So, I thought it best to make the berries to adorn a full size pincushion.

I used felt for the body construction of the pincushion. The pincushion is sewn with Kreinik gold filament(2 strands), embellished with a vintage gold button, and topped with a scrumptious yummy cluster of berries. Berries are made with Mill Hill beads, as per the book instructions.

I didn’t get any pictures of it’s creation in progress, but, here is the final product.

And, being the southern gentleman that my hubby is…he says…after all that I went through to create this beauty….”Wow! Looks like a doughnut!” He’s so funny.

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Since I had the beads out…I went ahead and made up a little design and added a few to a “quick and easy bottle cap pincushion”:

Have you made any beaded embroidery items? Berries? If so, I’d love to hear form you and see your pictures.

If you are a beginner at embroidery or even a beginner at beaded embroidery, you may want to try l little cluster of berries to adorn a small quick and easy project. Your life needs fun. Go ahead, have some fun!

Embroidery Project- Coris Wrasse Bottle Cap Pincushion

As I was creating cute little quick and easy bottle cap pincushions, my hubby…stopmtion animator, artist, master of many many crafts, looked over and said, “Uh, I need a pincushion.”

He designs his own stopmotion animation sets, complete with wire and ‘ball and socket’ armature puppets, all of which need fabric, costumes, props, …you name it, he needs it. So, without further ado, I created a custom pincushion for him. (Now the fun part…!)

We snorkel a lot.

His all time favorite fish is the juvenile coris wrasse. We have thousands of underwater photos since hubby took up underwater photography a year ago. We have an entire folder dedicated to this fish (and many turtles 😉 ) Most people here mistake this for a clown fish, but it is not. (We don’t have the clown fish here in Hawaii)

We regularly snorkel at Shark’s Cove and after snapping this little guy’s picture, hubby scooped this little coris wrasse (of which hubby has great talent for thinking like a fish…especially to catch a wrasse) and this little wrasse now lives in our salt water tank here at home. (We eventually return them to their ocean home…they are basically “on loan” 😉 )

So, I employed my observation skills, watched the little wrasse, made a few sketches, noted the colors, snapped a photo or two, and…created a little Coris Wrasse Pincushion for hubby.

The little fish is all done in DMC floss, long and short stitch, outline stitch for black. I changed the direction of the threads to show the fins.

I also love to crochet and knit and spin, so I have a plethora of yarns and threads. After digging through a great bunch of fun stash, I found wonderful sea themed yarns to couch onto the felt.

The result is a cute little coris wrasse pincushion.

It is a cute little size. Just perfect for a handy amount of pins for a project.

What’s your passion? Wouldn’t it be great to have your own personal little pincushion displaying your favorite things? Go ahead…make one…or two… 😉 When you do, please share your photos with me, I’d love to see what you make! Your life needs fun. Go ahead, have some fun!