Feel the Wookie Love

Who doesn't love Star Wars and cute stitching? Over on Craftster, Love and a Sandwich created these adorable Star War Hoops. I am just dying over them!

She is so talented and I loved learning more about these pieces and about her.

Tell me about the piece
I made four embroidery & applique pieces featuring the fuzziest creatures from the Star Wars movies!  Two Chewbacca pieces featuring quotes from Han Solo about him.  My favorite duo An Ewok just hangin' out on the Forest Moon of Endor, and then a Wampa right after its arm has been cut off, and not looking too happy about it I made these for a Star Wars themed show.

Tell me a little bit about yourself.
My real name is Chelsea Bloxsom but I go behind the name Love & a Sandwich when posting my work.  I live in Boston, MA and work from home alongside my concept artist boyfriend and two fantastic pups!  I normally make furry plush monsters, but recently I've been really into appliqueing & embroidering on hoops.

What/Who inspires you
Anything/anyone with a great imagination!  Studio Ghibli movies, Tim Burton movies (the old ones), and too many fantasy/action movies to list!  Some artists that inspire me that also sew are Lana Crooks, Felt Mistress, A Little Stranger, Victor Huang, Becky Gould, and Steff Bomb.  All amazing people with totally unique styles.

What are you working on now? Do you have plans for a future project?
Right at this very moment I am working on a Ludo (from the movie Labyrinth) embroidery & applique!  I have plans for many more, mostly of my favorite fuzzy creatures from movies/tv.

What would you tell someone who wants to work with felt? Is it hard?
Working with felt is awesome!  It's inexpensive, so you don't feel bad if you're using up a lot of it if you redo your design and re-cut it.  It also comes in so many wonderful colors!  It is definitely easy to work with, it was the first material I started working with when I made plush toys.  It's easy to get nice crisp lines on your designs with felt, as long as you have a good pair of scissors

August Stitch-along | Week 4

Thanks to everyone who participated in the August stitch-along! There were so many great pieces this month -- too many, really, to show them all. I've collected most (if not all) of the photos from the Flickr pool and compiled them in a few Flickr galleries. You can always search Flickr for our tag, "auguststitchalong", to see everyone's pictures.

August Stitch-along | Week 1 Gallery
August Stitch-along | Week 2 Gallery
August Stitch-along | Week 3 Gallery
August Stitch-along | Week 4 Gallery
August Stitch-along | Week 5 Gallery

To close out the month, I wanted to show a few finished pieces and some more works-in-progress. If you're still stitching away, don't worry! We'd still love to see your progress over in Flickr.

Photo by j_q_adams (my piece!)

Photo by sewjenaissance

Photo by daisyeyes

Photo by letscallitlove

Photo by amyhood21

Photo by BohoIslandBaby

Photo by paperseaside

Photo by Savage Pink

Photo by Fiber Fairy

Photo by milly and tilly

Photo by madama

Stay tuned for another fun stitch-along from the Feeling Stitchy crew, coming soon!

Patterns: Ferris Wheel

Ferris Wheel Embroidery by katbaro

I love this Ferris Wheel embroidery Kat from Just Crafty Enough stitched up as part of the Iron Craft Challenge. Kat very kindly posted the pattern as a personal use only freebie on Just Crafty Enough, which you can find here

The Cat and the Bird & looking for sponsors!

I guess the cat will literally have to jump through hoops to get to the bird. Love this  'Cat and Bird' series embroidered by Whimsiology!

Last week I announced that the Feeling Stitchy team is planning to do a contest soon. Remember last years Rainbow of Stitches contest? That was fun right? At the moment we are looking for sponsors to be able to give the winner(s) of this years contest some neat prizes. Think supplies, books, magazines...If you are interested in sponsoring our contest, you can contact me on followthewhitebunny AT e-tropolis DOT nl  

Sixteen candles embroidery

Stitched by mindboggld

Just thought you had to see this (I could recognize Molly Ringwald even from the thumbnail). Seriously, Kandra? You are awesome. :)

Patterns:Hardly Bear

Hardly Bear by Penelope Waits

Awwww, isn't this sweet? Essie from Penelope Waits has created this lovely customisable cross stitch pattern. On the chart the word sweet has been left blank and Essie has provided charts for a number of other useful adjectives (awesome, silly, clever etc.), as well as an alphabet so that you can make up your own words. You can find the pattern, as well as other cool cross stitch stuff (I love her Woodland Sampler to) here.

August Stitch-Along | Week 3

I am SO glad to see so many wonderful (and diverse) contributions showing up in the Embroidery Flickr pool as part of our August stitch-along. I'm a bit relieved, too -- I wasn't sure if anyone would be as excited about this idea as I was. But it looks like you guys were excited, judging from both the number and quality of the embellished fabric projects that y'all are sharing.

Want to see some of the contributions? I thought so!

I absolutely love the bright and happy colors of the piece above, by Mom Walds Place. I love how she chose floss colors that are not present in the fabric itself for contrast.

bySaraLynn has made so much wonderful progress on her piece above. Her color palette is beautiful and her use of that contrasting bright pink really adds a new element to the fabric that wasn't there without it.

"Wow" is about all I can say about this fairy fabric embellishment, stitched by sewjenaissance. I can tell just by looking at it that it's a true labour of love.

I'm glad that so many of you are simply having fun with this project -- and nothing's more fun than the piece above. You've just gotta love these robots, stitched by fav_orite.things.

As of our last post, Savage Pink hadn't yet decided on a fabric. Well, she ultimately chose my vote, the animal print above, and has selected her floss colors. Can't wait to see this one come to life!

These birds, stitched by daisyeyes, are just adorable. I love the satin stitched detail on the red bird above!

Here are three more great starts -- and one impressive finished piece! -- submitted by (clockwise from top left): letscallitlove, Read the Book, DetroitMommy, and bob&be.

amyhood21 really understood and embraced this month's challenge, as evidenced by her gorgeous work-in-progress (above).

Finally, check out the fun direction in which Beadgirlj has taken her project. She started with the dotted fabric above -- a great choice for embellishment, really -- and thought way beyond just using floss.

She has completed four individual circle designs so far, which are shown in greater detail below.

I couldn't include all of the amazing pictures but have been collecting them in some Flickr galleries. Check out the links below to see all of the beautiful submissions thus far:

Week 1 Gallery
Week 2 Gallery
Week 3 Gallery

For next week's update I hope to start sharing some finished project ideas. Will you be framing yours in a hoop for hanging? Making it into a pillow? Quilt square? However you decide to finish your project, please let us know!

Muy caliente!

Photo by Aimee Ray

There's a cute free pattern over on the Lark site, designed by Aimee Ray! And you know I can't resist a little embroidered Spanish: Free Potholder Project. :)

Especially Awesome

I was so excited to find this wonderful embroidery made by Judith Pudden in the Embroidery Group on Flickr. The detail in this work is amazing and I especially love the silver skirt. This embroidery is based on an Edward Gorey illustration. His outstanding work translates well to embroidery as I found out myself recently.  I actually have another one in the (or rather a) hoop at the moment. Check out Judith's other embroidery work here (impressive satin stitching!).

Now... I was wondering if you all would like another Feeling Stitchy contest? I hope so, because we have one planned in about a months time! Actually, I just realised that today's featured work would fit the contest rather well. Are you curious yet what the theme is?

If you only knew the power of the Dark Side

Darth Vader embroidery, originally uploaded by color and pattern.

I love a nice bit of Star Wars stitch-geekery.

You do too, right? ;-)

Patterns: Smile for the camera (again)

Embroidered Diana Camera Skirt stitched by Sew Lovely

I don't know about anyone else but personally I struggle sometimes with what to do with my embroidery, my pieces usually end up on cushions and I think my husband would say that we now have way too many cushions! So I love this idea by Sew Lovely of making this gorgeous camera embroidery into a skirt pocket so much that I thought it was worth blogging about the Smile for the Camera pattern sheet again (originally blogged about here). I think if you know your way round a sewing machine reasonably well, this would be quite easy to do and would be a lovely way to personalise a skirt!

Cross Cross Cross Dot Dot Dot

These dotted butterflies are part of the Power Animal series designed by Amy (aka GirlFlamant). I absolutely love each and every pattern of that series! All animal silhouettes have their own pattern and include a fleur-de-lis owl and an houndstooth patterned Jackalope.  I'm about to start stitching a tartan Loch Ness monster! Find all Power animals (and other patterns as well) in her Etsy shop.

If you have not tried Counted Cross Stitch before (I'm very much a newbie myself) do check out the wonderful (and free!) downloadable Cross Stitch guides by Sophie of What Delilah Did. And don't forget to have a look in her shop with many gorgeous kits and patterns as well!

August Stitch-Along | Week 2

I'm excited to see so many enthusiastic stitchers joining me for the August stitch-along. For week 1 I asked you to simply find a piece of inspirational fabric that's just screaming to be embellished with stitches, and there were some GREAT photos added to our Flickr pool. Here are a few from some fellow stitchers:

Some fun chunky birds with black and white flowers, submitted by daisyeyes.

sewjenaissance also chose a print featuring a bird with some fun scroll-like detail to embellish.

knitsaholic posted this amazing shot of a work-in-progress that achieves exactly what we're shooting for this month! The design, the colors, the stitching ... perfect!

I think it's becoming abundantly clear that people love to stitch both flora & fauna -- and especially birds! -- as evidenced by the 2 fabric selections being considered by Savage Pink (above), and the hummingbird print seen below (by BohoIslandBaby).

Some folks haven't decided yet on their fabric.~PixieFey~ is still choosing between the Kate Spain print on the left and the fun & funky coral number on the right.

And Fiber Fairy has narrowed it down to the three prints below:

What do you think? Click on over and let them know which one you think they should choose!

The bold, rich colors of the floral pattern above (selected by amyhood21) are just perfect for this project. In contrast, milly and tilly is starting with a black and white print and adding soft colors with her floss selection.

Here's a beautiful color selection (and another bird!) from dixieniche:

I can't wait to see what Thread Wizard does with this amazing fabric selection!

And there are more! Unfortunately, due to permission restrictions, I wasn't able to post some of the photos here, but I've compiled them all in a Flickr gallery created especially for the stitch-along and that I invite you to check out.

It's certainly not too late to join in. (Shoot, I haven't even had a minute to make my first stitch!) Simply take a picture of your fabric and floss selection or your work-in-progress and add it to our Flickr pool. Be sure to tag your photos with "AugustStitchalong" to make it easy to find them all.

Next week: let's focus on starting our embellishment with some simple stitches. Think backstitching for outlines, seed stitching for fills, and maybe some French knots for flourish. I can't wait to see what you do with your fabric!