Hand Embroidery Dictionary Bloghop and a Patchwork Pony

Welcome to my stop on the Hand Embroidery Dictionary Blog Tour! I’ve had such fun trying out this fabulous new book by Christen Brown, published by C&T Plublishing, which has just been released. I also have an eBook copy to give away so read on for details about how to win it!

EDITED FOR GIVEAWAY WINNER

congratulations to Suzanne Ramsay!

The random generator chose your comment number 31, so you win the eBook copy of Hand Embroidery Dictionary. I will email you with more info.

Thanks so much to everyone who entered and I’m sorry you couldn’t all win!

I actually sat next to Christen at a Faculty Luncheon during Fall Quilt Market/Festival in Houston 2019 and we discovered we were both authors with C&T and were both about to embark on new embroidery books.

So I was delighted to receive a digital copy of Hand Embroidery Dictionary (with a hard copy on it’s way) and be part of this blog tour.

Christen has written a number of embroidery books and is the perfect expert to author this comprehensive dictionary of stitches. Within the 160 pages you will find 16 stitch families or groups, with over 500+ stitches. These are broken down from the basics for beginners to more complex designs for advanced stitchers. I paticularly love the fact that both right-hand and left-hand directions are included for the basic stitches. 

Christen also includes some stunning examples of her own work for inspiration, like the embellished hearts above and below, and that beautiful landscape panel from the cover which uses buttons and lace!

The stitches are perfect for contemporary embroidery art or crazy quilting and the book also contains excellent sections on choosing tools and threads, achieving the perfect stitch, and starting to design your own unique embroidery project.

 I thought the section on ‘the anatomy of a stitch’ was particularly informative. It also has a very personal feel too as Christen talks about her early influences and why she loves to embroider.

I think this book should be on every stitcher’s bookshelf, I really can’t recommend it highly enough!

I was surprised to discover so many new stitches I hadn’t tried before along with really imaginative variations and combinations of stitches that I just had to try out. But first I needed a project!

Recently I’ve been trying to use old clothes for more of my sewing and have been working on a magazine commission with sustainablilty and recycling in mind.  This has created a lot of scraps from different denims which I wanted to use too.

So I dug out my old Dala Horse pattern from an issue of Love Patchwork and Quilting from way back in 2014. I used 2″ squares to create two patchwork panels big enough for the horse body.  But I just sensed the demim squares were going to need some embellishment and that’s when I realised I could multi-task by trying out some of the embroidery stitches from the book! I chose my favourite colours of Aurifil 12wt wool and got started.

I just love that dragonfly stitch! It’s cleverly worked with chain stitch and couching and I really could have covered the whole thing with these as they were so much fun to stitch. I also loved the Lazy Daisy Square Tip and the Whip Stitch Rose (shown above in orange).  Some of these are familiar stitches to me but the slight variations Christen suggested gives them an extra boost.

Trying out the stitches on the pony panels was a good way of practicing them. Gwen’s Rose takes a bit of time to get right (I’m still not completely there) but my second attempt (the green bordered flower on the left) was much better then the first! I loved this stitch which uses a mixture of chain stitch and raised buttonhole stitch, it’s so different from any other rose I’ve attempted.

Once I’d finished the embroidery I used the Dala Horse pattern to make the Patchwork Pony. I stuffed him using scrap wadding (mainly trimmings from quilt edges) and used yard ends for the mane and tail.  I love how sustainable he is!

He’s also my adorable new friend! I think the embroidery ‘dapples’ really suit him and make him look extra special.  I’m hoping to make a series of sustainable ponies using orphan blocks as well as recycled fabrics.  And maybe I will issue a pattern and organise a SAL next year?!  All stuff I am considering.

Meanwhile let’s giveaway an eBook copy of this fantastic new Hand Embroidery Dictionary!

Simply leave me a comment below to enter, you can tell me anything you like in the comment but I’d love to know what your favourite embroidery stitch is!

The giveaway closes on Friday 24th September at midnight BST (UK time) and is open to international entries. I will chose a winner and notify them by next Monday (27th). I’ll also edit this post to announce it. Good luck everyone!

If you’d like to go ahead and purchase a copy of the book just click on the link here or head to your local book store.