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Mary Corbet

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I learned to embroider when I was a kid, when everyone was really into cross stitch (remember the '80s?). Eventually, I migrated to surface embroidery, teaching myself with whatever I could get my hands on...read more

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Weekend Stitching: Embroidering a Different Scene

 

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Good morning and Happy Wednesday! This morning, just a quick update on last weekend’s stitching!

I’ve been embroidering up some small garden border designs for upcoming summer classes.

Remember the mushroom question from last week? Well, I put that one aside until I can adjust it a bit, and I moved on to the next garden scene, which has a few more elements in it and is for older participants.

Small Garden Border Scene

While this scene is somewhat reminiscent of last year’s Floral Corners, it’s a little different, too. It features many of the same stitches, but I mixed up the flowers and I threw in some butterflies.

I didn’t add other creatures, although I keep thinking a snail would be a fun element. I may do that on the third version.

We will only have 4.5 hours together (three classes out of six) for this particular project, during which time we’ll get the kids started, we’ll work on a little of each element so they know what to do, and then this project will go home with them at the end of the classes, to be completed on their own time. It gives them something to do during the remaining days of summer vacation!

Small Garden Border Scene

As always, you’ll see some old favorites in here – stitches that I think are good foundational stitches, like stem stitch, fishbone, daisy stitch, chain stitch, backstitch, French knots. If you know those, you can do a lot with embroidery. (Each of those links will take you to a tutorial for each of those stitches, in case you want to add them to your repertoire.)

There are also some more inventive stitches, to show the kids how to think beyond just the written instructions in a book and to “grow” a stitch into something else. Take, for example, those little buds on the branch. They start off as one simple stitch, but I really wanted them to look more like buds than they did with the one basic stitch, so I added some new layers to them to dress them up.

I’ll go back to the previous mushroom design I showed you last week and tweak it before I use it. I’m not especially twitterpated with that mushroom, and you all offered lots of good advice for alternatives or adjustments. We’ll see what comes of it!

I’m dog and house sitting this week at my sister’s while her family is on vacation, so I’ve not had a lot of studio time. I’ve had some good stitching time, though, and a lot of laptop-work-sessions. They say change is as good as a vacation – but… the jury is still out on that one!

I hope you’re having a splendid week and that you get some quality time in with your needle and thread, too!

 
 

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(17) Comments

  1. Beautiful! Good luck with animals lol! I am stitching a crazy quilt square with a 1920’s pic of my Grandmother on it. I am a volunteer Docent at our local history museum and they have an exhibit right now on stitching and quilts! Visitors enjoy watching me stitch and it gives me an opportunity to teach those interested, so I always have a pice of linen for them to take a stitch or two themselves. I love it

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  2. Lovely, chipper design! Looks to be a good one for a tote bag or casual pillow cover as well. Must keep track…
    Enjoy your change of scene!
    Linda

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  3. HA! Twitterpated! Love it! I wonder why more people don’t say ‘twitterpated’ now that we have Twitter?

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  4. Morning Mary,
    Another wonderful design showing just how amenable simple stitches can be. I absolutely love those little buds but can’t tell what stitches you used in the combination, would you mind telling us please.
    Vacations are nice, and I do enjoy them. The only difficult thing about them is the things you forgot to pack. I’ve enjoyed seeing your doggie posts on facebook.
    Best regards ~ Brenda

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    1. Thanks, Brenda! Those are granitos and a series of overlapping straight stitches.

      I used to overpack whenever I travelled – just a bad habit. “What if I need this?” I’ve gotten to the point where I’m a little more realistic about what I will actually use while I’m away from home. I’m not that far home right now, though, so I can just buzz back and forth as I need to.

  5. I love this version Mary! Those buds are so pretty 🙂 Now that I’m more familiar with the basic stitches I want to learn to “grow” them into combinations too!

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  6. Dear Mary

    What a lovely design especially the sunflower and the buds, I’m sure the children will love it. I wish I was a child again and participating in your summer stitching class I would love being taught by you Mary. I’ve been watching your progress on FB and Mishka and dogsitting so funny I love it he is so cute even if he sleeps most of the time. Enjoy your week away from home.

    Regards Anita Simmance

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  7. Your work is exquisite! How you find the time to do all this is a mystery to me–especially taking photos and writing about it all.

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    1. Thanks, Shelly! I quite like the yellow flower, too – but then, I’m from Kansas, and we have similar yellow “sunflowers” (not the same as the seed ones) growing all over the sides of the roads here in the summertime.

  8. Hi Mary,
    Did you have a post regarding the colors that you used for the younger kids spring embroidery project? Will it be an ebook at some point?

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    1. Hi, Beth – Do you mean the embroidery shown in this particular article? No, I don’t have a color list or stitch guide for this particular design, but the colors are all the same colors I used when working up the Floral Corners projects. I did play around with some extra variegated in here, but overall, they’re the same color scheme.

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