Thimblenest Thursdays: Summer/Winter Stitchalong, Week 1

Welcome to Week 1 of the Feeling Stitchy Summer~Winter Stitchalong! Whether you're traveling cross country on a road trip or sitting by the pool in the Northern Hemisphere or cozying up with a cup of tea and your favorite sweater in the Southern Hemisphere, it's the perfect season for an embroidery project!

Every two weeks over the next three months I'll be posting a new design for the project with stitch tips/suggestions and hopefully some photos featuring your stitching from previous weeks! (Be sure to share your work in the Feeling Stitchy Flickr group and on Instagram with #feelingstitchy!)

When the Stitchalong is finished, you'll have everything you need ready to stitch together an "AUTUMN" banner/bunting, just as the seasons change once again (sorry, Southern Hemisphere, this is the only part I couldn't get to work out for you, too!).

Since this is Week 1, we have a lot to go over. First, let's gather our materials . . .

MATERIALS

• 6* (or more)  9" x 7" (23 cm x 18 cm) fabric rectangles for embroidering (I'm using linen, but choose whatever you like best!)
• embroidery floss (suggested color palette below)
• AUTUMN embroidery design (get week 1 here)
• embroidery transfer pen, etc.
• embroidery hoop
• pinking shears
• sewing machine
• 6* (or more)  9" x 7" (23 cm x 18 cm) fabric rectangles for backing**
• 6* (or more) 8.5" x 6.5" (21.5 cm x 16.5 cm) rectangles of lightweight iron-on interfacing**
• 1 package/3 yards extra wide double-fold bias tape (or make your own)

*Cut more than 6 if you think you would like to add autumn motifs (provided) to your bunting (in addition to the letters).

**When finished, your embroidered pieces can either be left as-is, or you can back them with a light interfacing and coordinating quilting cotton.

SUGGESTED COLOR PALETTE

The colors above are the ones I'll be pulling from as I stitch each letter; there's no guarantee that I'll actually use all of them by the end of the Stitchalong, but I just couldn't bear to leave any behind. DMC floss from left to right: 779, 327, 154, 350, 352, 721, 720, 728, and 3852.

Prep Fabric

If you plan on backing your embroidered fabric, serge, pink, or zigzag the edges of the linen so it doesn't fray while you're embroidering.

If you don't plan on backing your finished letters, just use pinking shears when you're cutting the rectangles out.

This Week's Letter: A

Click here for the Week 1 embroidery design.

I'm hoping each week's letter design will be accessible for all levels of stitchers, since this is meant to be a laid-back, un-stressful experience. I'm basing most of the stitch ideas off of the running stitch and cross stitch, after finding this gem of a resource. Each week I'll show you what I did, but you can adapt/change/throw my ideas out as you see fit--make this yours!

Here's what I did with the Letter A; for all stitches I used 3 strands of embroidery floss:

• Chain stitch outline (DMC 720)
• Vertical interior running stitch (DMC 154)
• "Zig zag" between running stitches (DMC 728)
• Acorn bottoms (DMC 3852)
• Acorn "caps" (DMC 154)--3 strands was too much here; I should have used only 1 or 2.

Any questions?--I'll check the comments below. Otherwise, I'll be looking for your fabulous stitching in the Flickr Group and on Instagram and we'll meet back here in two weeks for the next letter! Happy Stitching!