Learning to Sew Bookmarks on National Libraries Day

Saturday 6th February was National Libraries Day with all sorts of activities taking place in libraries up and down the country, so a couple of The Lytham St Annes Embroiderers Guild members volunteered a few hours of their time to host an activity at Lytham Library.

As many children visit the library on Saturday with their parents, a simple yet fun activity was required and Felt Bookmarks using pre-cut shapes and simple stitches such as Running Stitch, Chain Stitch and Blanket Stitch fitted the bill nicely. Take a look at some cheerful examples.

How cute are these?

One little boy had fun "helping" one of our members to choose which butterflies to sew resting on a washing line - a novel idea but it looks so sweet. French Knots, Seeding and Cross Stitches decorated the butterflies and an edging of Blanket Stitch  held everything together (after inserting heavy weight vilene; also known as Pelmet Vilene; to give the bookmark some stiffness and stability).

The efforts of this young lady impressed us as she did all her own sewing and chose matching threads for each felt shape.

The purple/maroon butterfly was sewn in the middle to form a body; leaving the wings free to 'flutter in the breeze' after they had been embellished with a sequin and bead.  Here is a close up of  the central flower.

It was heart warming to see youngsters enthusiastically stitching away. Hopefully we will have whetted their appetite to learn more and become keen embroiderers in the future. 

You may no longer be aged under ten but do come along to future activities held in the Ansdell and Freckleton Libraries (please see library for details as dates vary) and have a go yourself. Of course, you are also welcome to pop along to the Unitarian Church Hall, Channing Rd on the 3rd Wednesday of the month and join us at one of our meetings.

Stitching makes us happy and we hope it will you too - come see for yourself.

Embroidering Woven Roses with 2D Stitches

In the last 2D Stitch post you will have seen the Woven Rose samples shown below.

 They are woven using 1 or 2 pins - as shown in the centre of the large teaching frame here.

The roses were formed using Woven Pique Stitch, the stems in Palestrina Stitch and the leaves in Raised Leaf Stitch.

I can almost smell the roses!

Flower heads could also be made using different of thread and a Spiders Web stitch.

We hope you have enjoyed viewing these lovely textured stitches. If you would like to learn how to stitch them for yourself come along to our group on the 3rd Wednesday of the month - details in our Profile para on the top right of the blog; Barbara or another of our experienced stitchers will be happy to show you the ropes (or should I say Threads? )

Next up is the Innovative Scottish Thistle.

An Innovative Scottish Thistle

The last couple of 2D samples we have to show you are this lovely Scottish Thistle using Lazy Daisy Stitch and  Sunburst flower using the same stitch and weaving over them the same way you would when doing Spiders Web to form a ring around the centre.

Thistle stem and leaves are Palestrina Stitches very close together. Stem Stitch makes up the purple 'cup' at the base of the flower and 11 very loose Lazy Daisy Stitches fan out from this. 
The turquoise part is made using Stranded embroidery thread to whip the lazy daisy stitches as in a Spider Web pattern and lastly the same lazy daisy stitches were Smocked to give the triangular effect at the top of the thistle.

No these are not for badminton - they are templates to help you make a Thistle for yourself.

The Sunburst Flower shows off the same techniques as the Thistle using Lazy Daisy Stitches and weaving around them.

The centre is filled with large French Knots using a thick thread.

More template shapes below may give you ideas for your own flowers.

Simply draw around the template onto your fabric using a light pencil or Dis-solvable marker pen for embroidery, hoop it up and use it to guide the placement of your stitches.

We hope that these past few posts on 2D stitches have inspired you to get going with your own Happy Stitching.

A 2D Embroidered Daffodil

While its not quite Spring yet already there are green shoots in the garden and in January we at the Lytham St Annes Embroiderers Guild were had a treat in being able to view and touch the gorgeous daffodil that Barbara stitched for us using a Woven Picot Stitch, so called because the stitch/stitches are actually woven on the needle.

An Early Spring Treat

See how the leaves and petals stand proud off the fabric?

The centre of the daffodil is Raised Cup Stitch and the stamens in the middle are tufted threads that have been looped and stiffened by brushing on a coat transparent glue. When dry the tufting was cut thus allowing the stamen to stand up.

Here are samples of Woven Picot using various threads.

You can also see examples of Woven Roses which will feature in the next post. 

Till then - Happy Stitching.

More 2D Stitches and Lavender

Here is the next set of samples sewn up for us by Barbara to further our knowledge of 2D stitching.

Experimenting with different thicknesses of thread in Raised Chain Stitch

Lovely textures using Raised Stem Bands

It looks complicated but was in fact very easy to stitch a band of Raised Chain Stitch or Raised Stem Stitch

The lavender above was sewn using Bullion Knots for the flower, Stem stitch for the stems along with Split stitch and tiny French Knot buds. 

Soil was made using doubled Anchor stranded cotton in a variegated brown shade and the stitch is Stem Stitch.

Well, that's enough eye candy for one post :-) next time you'll get to see a Daffodil in Woven Pique stitch.

So goodbye from Lytham St Annes Embroiderers Guild and as always - Happy Stitching.