In these posts I want to share some of my favorite pieces, which will include wall hangings, small works, pillows, purses, and just because pieces. This month they are going to be from my new book, Creative Embroidery, Mixing the Old with the New, by C&T Publishing.

Into the Garden: The base of this project started with a group of disparate fabrics, which included a collection of small strips of a few floral upholstery fabrics, two cuffs from a linen jacket, and a few squares of a printed polished cotton. I just started to randomly patch- and strip-piecing the base, fitting the pieces together, starting form small to large. Once the piecing was completed, I hand-quilted the base with perle cotton #12.

As I was contemplating my next move, I thought with all of the floral prints, this piece seemed to me to want to showcase a garden, with flowers, and birds, bugs, and more. I found some wonderful metal hangers, and some wooden clothespins, who doesn’t remember mom hanging the sheets out to dry in the warm summer sun?

I then rummaged around the button box, and found an eclectic mixture of old and new sew-through and shank buttons. I used the buttons as the centers for both the ribbonwork and embroidered flowers. A few were sewn as the body of the spiders and button bugs.

I found a great group of printed ribbons, burlap ribbon, printed rickrack trim, and vintage rickrack and loop trims. I used these as seam treatments, and for the ribbonwork flowers on the frame of the wooden hanger. I also found some rayon knitting ribbon and soutache braid for the stems of the flowers.

In the top left corner I stitched a sun, with rays shining down into the garden. Little stitched extras (which you can find in the book) include a birds nest, yo-yos, and penny circles. The little birds resting in the nest are made from spun cotton with beaks and wings made from dried mushrooms.

I filled the garden with buttons and charms of dragonflies, butterflies, and ladybugs. And of course spiders and their webs. I couched some old cotton twine for branches, on both the vertical edges, with a vine of couched silk ribbon to showcase the bright mixture of plastic, metal, and glass buttons.

I kept the embroidery fairly simple, so that the imagery could shine through. Included are: running stitch, chain stitch, stem stitch, couched stitch, lazy daisy stitch, fly stitch, French knot stitch, and straight stitch. You can find all of the embroidery stitches and the little stitched extras that I used in my book.

Here is a video that I shot at the C&T Publishing Studios, that focuses on the new book, and some of my favorite pieces.

Happy Stitching to you all! ~Christen