Passionflower embroidery and thread collection

I’ve got my embroiderer’s hat on for a change today.  As quilting is pretty much my full time job these days I like to think of other crafts like embroidery and crochet as my hobbies. But also sometimes I combine the two for an embroidery commission.

I first designed this passionflower pattern a couple of years ago for a class at myBearpaw studio. You can read my original post about it here.

I’d been wanting to produce a pattern for it for a while so when Stitch magazine asked me if I’d like to make a project for them I thought this would fit the bill nicely.

My original idea for this embroidery was to explore crewel work techniques and stitches, such as laid work, buttonhole stitch and filling with chain stitch, but to update them with a modern twist and to use cotton thread rather than crewel yarn (which is wool).  For those of you confused by the term ‘crewel’ it can be used to describe any embroidery that uses wool rather than cotton, but it does have some stitches that are particular to it, especially for what is known as Jacobean Crewel Work.

Stitch magazine is the publication of the Embroiderers Guild of the UK and I did have another project featured a few years back (a ‘scandi stitch’ hot water bottle cover).  This particular issue is all about nature so my passionflower design was perfect.

The magazine is full of gorgeous projects using a wide variety of different techniques, both hand and machine.  You can purchase a copy in WHSmiths or online here.

I chose colours for this new version of the design from my favourite range of embroidery threads, Aurifil 12wt.  I used to use an 8wt perle cotton for both hand quilting and embroidery but I now find this finer weight much easier on my hands and so I have completed switched to using 12wt exclusively.  I think it gives embroidery a beautiful fresh effect, I love the sheen and the colours available from Aurifil, and I really can’t be doing with the messiness of stranded floss! Plus it doubles up as my ‘go-to’ hand quilting thread.

 

The shades I chose looked so lovely together that it seemed the perfect opportunity for a second Aurifil collection, this time small spools of 12wt thread.  And so my new Passionflower collection was born!

I am absolutely delighted with it!  We sell a lot of 12wt spools in the shop but there isn’t a huge amount of 12wt collections available so this will fill a real gap in our store.

We took delivery of our first stock on Friday and they have already sold out!!  Don’t worry I will be getting more in soon, it’s just that Italy goes on holiday for most of August!

The official launch of the box will be at Festival of Quilts next week and they will have plenty of stock on the stand.  And there is a 10% discount available to anyone with a copy of Stitch magazine, just bring it along to the stand to claim it.  I will be doing a demo on the stand on Saturday afternoon at 2pm, showing how to do some of the stitches I used in the embroidery. Plus there will be more on the Aurifil blog later in the month with something a bit special for all that I’ll talk about nearer the time.

I’ll also be on the Aurifil stand at FOQ on Thursday afternoon for another collection launch!

This is the Great British Quilter box, curated by those two lovely ladies there Sarah Ashford and Charlie Mankin.  These girls are the brains behind the #greatbritishquilter Instagram Challenge. This collection was created in the spirit of the event, pulling together 12 designers from the UK, including Yours Truly. I was delighted to be asked and to be represented by ‘sunny’ variegated yellow! Each of us made a block and sent it to the girls who made them in to this beautiful quilt, which will hang in the Aurifil FOQ booth, where you will also be able to buy the collection. You can read lots more about this and find out who the other quilters are on the Aurifil blog here.

We also have a small stock of the GBQ collection in store (which arrived with the Passionflower) as well as Karen Lewis’s gorgeous new Wabi Sabi Sewing collection box, just launched today too.  You can view them all here AND we have a special introductory 10% discount offer for all our Aurifil collections, including my Sherbert Dip box, just use discount code stitchpassion10 at checkout to claim it!

If you are visiting FOQ please come along and see me on the Aurifil stand on either Thursday or Saturday.  If you can’t make it then don’t worry as Aurifil will be videoing the demo for Facebook Live and I will include a link in my FOQ report post after the event.

I have one more FOQ related announcement to come, so keep an eye out for more about this next week!