Scattered Stars Embroidered Pillow

Here’s a bit of festive embroidery to ease you into the Christmas period. Plus I have some exciting embroidery related news to share in this post so please read on…

This is my Scattered Stars Pillow which uses star shapes and jewel colours to create a cushion that looks good at Chrismas but can be used all year round!

It’s also my first ever project for Love Embroidery!  I’m delighted to finally get a chance to design for this relatively new magazine as it’s a sister publication of my regular quilting magazines Today’s Quilter and Love Patchwork and Quilting. It launched when I was busy stitching for Modern Crewel Embroidery and it’s taken a while for me to have enough time to make something exclusive for it.

Issue 22 is out now in the UK and includes some amazing embroidery projects plus it comes with that free Embroidered Lettering booklet.

The Scattered Stars Pillow uses the same style, stitches and thread from my Modern Crewel Embroidery book and is a continuation of all the samplers I created for that.

But instead of using pebbles, leaves or patchwork related shapes I wanted to find something that would suit this mid-winter issue of the magazine.  I’m always trying to think up new versions of my modern crewelwork samplers but it’s getting harder and harder to come up with new suitable shapes! Luckily theses different sized stars worked really well and gave me the space to try a wide variety of the stitches that I teach in the book.

I used my favourite Aurifil 12wt wool of course and chose what I consider a winter palette of crisp greens, aquas and jewel/berry shades. The background is Essex Linen in Natural which is the same as I chose for my Clamshells Pillow in the book. I see these as two companion pieces though this pillow is a little bigger than the Clamshells at 14″.

I just love that stitchy wool texture! Especially the colonial knots and the spiderweb wheel that I extended with satin stitches to fill the whole star. Using variegated thread makes the texture look extra good I think.

Though I am not producing a kit for this design I do sell all the shades used on my website here (for UK and Europe customers only). For customers in the rest of the world please check the Aurifil website here for stockists. You can also use the Thread Concierge  to find specific wools.

And now for my big news…

I’m going to have a gallery space at the Stitch Festival in London next March for an exhibition of Modern Crewel Embroidery!

The exhibition will include all the embroideries from the book plus others I have made since like the Peacock and Zinnia hoops (and the Scattered Star Pillow!) as well as new embroideries I am working on right now!

I’ll also be teaching a range of workshops including the Embroidered Leaf Brooch and Mini Pebbles Sampler pictured here AND giving some demos in the Live Theatre too! I’m going to be very busy!

I’m so looking forward to returning to my hometown (I used to live round the corner from the venue!) to host my first ever embroidery exhibition.  I do hope to see some friendly faces so if you are thinking of visiting this fantastic show please do come and say hello or take a class with me!  All the details are on their website here.

Meanwhile I’d like to wish you all a wonderful Christmas and hope all your wishes and dreams come true!