A little throwback

In the 80s, I did a lot of hand embroidery. I was at a friend's house the other night and saw this on her wall:

I so remember doing these stitches. I copied the oriole out of a book and drew the flowers and logs. She is from Maryland, so an oriole seemed right. The background is a little discolored, but the floss colors have held up beautifully.

This is one I made for my sister. Her partner's name started with M and my sister's name starts with W. Not sure where I came up with the color scheme!

I don't have a lot of pictures of my embroidery. I spent hours with my boxes of floss and just the right needle. For some reason, I just wanted to share these today.

Sewing again! Dish towel fun.

Two things:

First, it has been a while since I've been able to sew. I had a trigger finger and my carpal tunnel syndrome repaired. that meant that I had to hold off on doing any real sewing. I'm able to sew again and that makes me very happy.

Second, I need dish towels. Rather than run out and buy some, I decided to use an old bath towel that has seen better days. I cut out two pieces that were not damaged, serged the edges, and then tried to decide what to do. I had a smidgen of a cutter quilt left, so I cut out hearts and zig-zagged them onto the dish towel base. I try to make sure to sew over each old original seam; they're hand sewn and prone to come apart. Plus, these towels are going to be used and washed, so it's best to reinforce every seam I can.

I used a tight zig-zag stitch to applique the hearts in place and then applied Fray-Check for good measure.

I went through my leftover bias tape and found a length of red. I also zig-zagged that by machine and that was that.

Now I have a dish towel and one more blank ready to decorate. I have three more patchwork hearts, so I'll probably use those, but in a different arrangement somehow.

Lesson learned is that our bath towels are not dead when they're about ready to be retired. Take a look and see what you have. This was a quickie afternoon project, but you can make it as fancy or as simple as you like. The bottom line is that it's a true scrap project. I bought nothing. (I don't count the thread; I always have thread on hand and I wasn't as concerned about a 100% match for these.)

Now that I have a healed hand, I am finding I have a better than healed hand. I can hand sew again! In a very short while, I get to try embroidering again, and that makes me more than happy. I haven't embroidered for almost 30 years. And guess what? I have lots of old DMC floss, so I'll be scrap stitching then too!

A wondrous thought

It just dawned on me tonight that I may be able to hand embroider again after my hand heals. I had carpal tunnel and trigger finger surgery last Friday. I'm doing great, but it's amazing to me to think that it took me years to have this done. I have had symptoms of the dreaded carpal tunnel for 20 years, at least. It is 100% gone, even as I heal. It was gone when I came out from anesthesia. I hope to be cleared for sewing and scissors work next week when I get my stitches out. I am having withdrawal from my needle and thread!

P.S. Good thing I've never gotten rid of my basket of DMC floss!

Fun craft that can be adapted in many ways!

Over on Crafting A Green World, they have posted a really cool way to use old embroidery hoops to make Easter eggs. But guess what? You could do this with any hoop, any fabric, any embellishment, and have a really cool item to hang on your wall or give as a gift. I always see these hoops at yard sales and know I have a few of my own. I hooped embroidered pictures many years ago and had just about forgotten this method of crafting.

Image used by permission courtesy of  Crafting A Green World

Think of three round hoops with your favorite fabrics, quilt blocks (who says all blocks have to be made into pillows?), photo printed fabric, a button art piece, or just about anything, and hang them on the wall in a triangle or straight trio of art.

You may want to follow Crafting a Green World's blog. They have some amazing ideas that tickle the gray matter and make you think "I can do that!" Lots of their ideas have been jumping off points for me and get me thinking about a variety of ways to create. Have fun with it!