Patterns: Whistle While You Work

WIP stitched by Pooka Loves Tomatoes

This week's pattern is from the September 2011 issue of the CrossStitcher magazine. The CrossStitcher magazine is one of my favourite crafty magazines and I'd love to have the time to stitch up all their amazing designs. Pooka writes that this work-in-progress (which is for her Nana for Christmas - lucky Nana!) has taken more than 40 hours, wow!

You can find the CrossStitcher in newsagents in the UK or in online magazine places like Zinio, the latter being a great place for finding back issues or if you live outside the UK.

Covered in Stitches Winners!!!

We had lots and lots of votes in the past week for the Covered in Stitches nominees! Without further ado I would like to announce the winners.

With 18.9 % of the votes The Invisible Mountain by SpidersPaw wins the first prize.You will receive the current set of Penguin Threads classics offered by Penguin Books, a Party Fox Crewel Kit from Takofibers, a Matroushka floss organizer from Girl on the Rocks and a $15 voucher from Cate Anevski's shop. 

Contes des Mille et Une Nuits by Coeurdefreesia is runner up with  17.4 % of the votes. You will receive one book of your choice from the Penguin Threads classics, an owl floss organizer from Girl on the Rocks, a $15 voucher from Shiny Happy World and a $10 voucher from Cate Anevski's shop.

The third place goes to Lisa Leggett with her piece Wynken, Blynken and Nod. Her piece won 14.4% of the votes.You will receive one book of your choice from the Penguin Threads classics, an owl floss organizer from Girl on the Rocks and a $10 voucher from Shiny Happy World.

Congratulations to all the winners! Please send me an email at followthewhitebunny AT e-tropolis DOT nl  with your full name, home address and email address.

Many thanks to the sponsors who made it possible for us to treat the winners to some wonderful prizes. Please check out their shops and products. Thank you Feeling Stitchy readers for casting your vote for your favourite piece. And last but not least: thank you contestants.Your work made this a FABULOUS contest!

Fire place sampler

A Night In by Pin Pals

Now, this is my kind of cross stitch sampler! Love everything about it, the little scene, the colours.

And is it just me or is there something Matisse-esque to this?

Patterns: Nativity Set

Donkey by Rebecca Rendon

Now of course there are a lot of nativity embroidery patterns around at this time of year but I think my jaw dropped just a little at the sheer scale of Rebecca Rendon's nativity set from her new Etsy shop WholeLifeLovely. Consisting of 24 nativity pieces, both front and back, the lovely donkey above is but an example. Check out Rebecca's blog Beauty All Around for a tutorial on how to turn the embroideries into little stand up pieces.

Have you voted yet?

Don't get me wrong, we've had a lot of votes! Like A LOT a lot of votes, but I'm just curious if you have voted. All the entries are amazing and it's so hard to decide on just one!

I thought I'd share one last look at the Top 10, as we move into the last few days of voting...

Superman by Huzzah and Fancy Pants - detail

Can you believe this is their first embroidery project - wow!


Still Life With Woodpecker by cappywanna - detail

Wonderfully stitched and a hilarious novel, too. :)


French Revolutions by the Stitchsmith - detail

Intricate stitching - I can only imagine the hours that went into this piece!


The Great Gatsby by broderies de Cecile - detail

Vibrant blue fabric with letters and details stitched so carefully they look painted!


The Adventures of Tintin by wendalene - detail

Lots of bright chain stitch creatively accented with watercolor and color pencil.


Dune by funkembroidery - detail

Metallic thread, dense stitches, intricately layered strips of fabric. And - she hand-dyed the muslin... with spices.


Wynken, Blynken & Nod by Lisa Leggett - detail

A whimsical, colorful piece with many different stitches, color tinting and applique sail.


No.1 Ladies Detective Agency by Embellisher - detail

Layers of fabrics, dense piles of colored stitches and - the croc is made of French knots, people.


The Invisible Mountain by SpidersPaw - detail

A fascinating piece, painstakingly stitched, filled with movement and color.


Contes des Mille et Une Nuits by coeurdefreesia - detail

Applique, sequins, beads, and many, many different stitches.

Yeah, try picking one of those. Sheesh this was hard! :) Still haven't voted? Vote here!

Who did you vote for, and why? Come on, you can tell us - who is your fave? :)

Bushy Tail

Admit it, you too want to touch that squirrel's bushy tail! Gorgeous stumpwork by Emily (aka Flossbox). She writes about the project here.

So when I think of stumpwork (which is essentially raised embroidery) I tend to think it's all beetles, flowers and forest critters. Nothing wrong with that of course (see our little bushy tailed friend above) but I was surprised to find a few very modern examples in our Embroidery Group as well. Like this Skeleton Fire-Banner by Childrenplayingwithfire and this Green Man by Rebbeca Ray. And let's not forget the KISS piece by Drop Dead Quirky! These pieces certainly make me want to attempt to create a stumpwork piece too!

Covered in Stitches Contest: vote for your favourite!

The Feeling Stitchy team had the incredibly hard task to select 10 embroideries entered for the Covered in Stitches Contest, for the public vote. Yes, it's now up to you, dear Feeling Stitchy readers, to choose your favourite Embroidered Book Cover!

Please click here to vote until the 22nd of November 12 pm CST. Please vote only once. Any duplicate entries will be disqualified.

But let's first meet the nominees (in no particular order) and find out what the judges had to say about the pieces in their reports!

The Great Gatsby  by Broderies de Cecile "Love the eyes and lettering, so clean"

Superman by Huzzah and Fancy Pants "The lettering is perfect! Love the satin stitch"

Wynken, Blynken & Nod by Lisa Leggett  "Brilliant stitching, shading and applique, you can feel the movement in this, it's got everything."

The Adventures of Tin Tin by Wendalene "I had to look closely at this one to see if it wasn't some kind of printed on fabric it looks that accurate, but nope, all stitching and shading, fantastic."

Dune by Funkembroidery  "Muslin hand-dyed with kitchen spices? How awesome is that!"

Still Life with Woodpecker by Cappywanna "Brilliant choice of book cover, perfectly executed."

The Invisible Mountain by SpidersPaw "The creative use of fill stitching on this piece is mind blowing."

No.1 Ladies Detective Agency by Embellisher "Fantastic recreation of the cover, yet with the stitching it somehow manages to look even better than the original, I love how textured it looks"

French Revolutions by the Stitchsmith "I like the different stitches used. Especially the little 'airflow' details on some of the letters."

Conte des Mille et Une Nuits by Coeurdefreesia  "The face and the colors are wonderful, love the metallics"

Again, we were quite overwhelmed by the many great entries for this contest. We loved that many of you used techniques like fabric dying, tinting and appliqué to create the finished book cover. Another highlight was the crazy amount of fill stitching on many of the embroidered book covers! It was also lovely to see a couple of first time embroiderers among the contestants (and even making the final 10!).

Now go on, vote for your favourite!

It's the eyes

Totoro Cross Stitch, originally uploaded by Aleximo.

At least I think it's the eyes that makes this so super cute!

It's a character called Totoro from Japanese anime film My Neighbour Totoro.

Patterns: ~glenda's Christmas stitching

Dachshund with gift - free pattern by Orange You Lucky

Ninjabread man - pattern by Urban Threads

Holiday Penguin - free pattern by Badbird

Singing girl with bird (I unfortunately can't find the link to this pattern)

Dachshund with Christmas antlers - free pattern by Orange You Lucky

~glenda has stitched up these beautiful ornaments up as part of the Bastrop (Texas) Wildfire relief effort, replacing Christmas decorations for those that lost their homes in the fire this summer. Click on the links above to take you to bigger versions of the embroideries or to go to the pattern source. Go here for a great photo tutorial on how ~glenda made the embroideries into ornaments.

Charley Harper Water Drop Quilt

This is a quilt in progress but it's already so incredibly wonderful that I just had to share it with you! Of the 33 organisms in Charley Harper's original illustration Martha (a k a  Q is for Quilter) has appliqued and stitched 17 so far. Isn't the background fabric just perfect for this Water Drop project? Love the combination of applique and stitching too. Inspiring stuff! Read all about it on Martha's blog.

Covered in Stitches Contest update

WOW! We are absolutely delighted by your submissions to our Covered in Stitches contest. Many contestants have clearly put a lot of thought, time and effort into their embroideries. And to learn that there is so much talent among our readers, is quite humbling.

In total there were 45 embroideries entered by 42 contestants (if I counted correctly). Some books appear several times (Anne of Green Gables was a popular one)  but on the whole there was a large variety in the book covers that were chosen. From Science Fiction to children's books and from cook book to comic books. According to the descriptions of the pieces entered for this contest, quite a few embroiderers have expanded their stitchy horizon to complete their work. Either by the scale of the project or by trying out new stitches or techniques. There were even a few contestants who made their very first embroidery for this contest!

Early next week a shortlist of candidates (as chosen by six members of the Feeling Stitchy team) will be presented on this blog. After that Feeling Stitchy readers can vote for their favourite Embroidered Book Cover! 

Patterns: Studio M.M.E Illustrations

Embroidery patterns and stitching by Studio M.M.E

I was browsing the embroidery patterns on Etsy, which is a bit of a hobby of mine, and to be honest I normally recognise most of the patterns on there or at least the designer, so it's a rare treat for me to see something new and to be totally blown away by it. And I was totally blown away by the embroidery patterns of Studio M.M.E Illustrations, an Etsy store that principally sells some absolutely beautiful prints. Luckily for us embroiderers, Megan from Studio M.M.E has now also converted some of her illustrations into embroidery patterns. Billed as embroidery patterns for experienced sewers, I think it's great to have patterns available that are a little more of a challenge. However Megan herself taught herself to embroider over 2 months in order to create these patterns, so I think they're probably actually doable by most embroiderers, that extra effort would be worth it to have such a fantastic final piece. So I definitely recommend checking out the link above so that you can read more of the story behind each piece.

More Embroidered Book Covers to look forward to...

Penguin has done it again!  After the awesome Jillian Tamaki embroidered book cover designs for the the Penguin de Luxe Editions of Emma, Black Beauty and the Secret Garden (now all available!) there are three more 'Penguin Thread' titles to look forward to! Rachell Sumpter has stitched some fantastic cover designs for  Wind in the Willows, The Wizard of Oz and Little Women. The designs are wonderful but equally important: embroidery gives these cover illustrations warmth, and really makes them come alive.

If you want to know a little bit more about the design process of the first three 'Penguin Threads' books check out this short interview with Penguin Art Director Paul Buckley and Jillian Tamaki.

This Monday our 'Covered in Stitches' contest comes to an end so if you are playing along please remember to post your photos in our Flickr Group in time. As you may recall one of the grand prizes is the full set of the first three 'Penguin Threads' books!  If you are not submitting an embroidery, have a look in the group anyway. I"m so very impressed with all the submissions so far!

Día de los Muertos

I love Día de los Muertos. It is a wonderful celebration honoring those who have passed on. Phizzychick stitched this amazing Day of the Dead teacup and saucer. I love the rustic feel to it and I think it would be a great addition to my alter.  You can check out her other greatness on Craftster and in her shop.