Congratulations to Christina, she is the winner of a fruit stamped towel. I hope you post pictures when it’s complete so we can all see it!

Thanks to everyone for entering!!

(a work in progress shot of a pillow I’m working on)

This month’s give away is for a “tea towel embroidery kit”. The kit includes 1-pre stamped flour sack towel (with the design of your choice), 1-gold eye needle (my fav.’s), and enough skeins of floss to complete the project (and if I’m feeling crafty this weekend, I might make a needle case).

I’ve rummaged through my stash of patterns to pull out three options for you. I’ve hunted through flickr and I don’t believe these workbasket patterns have been posted before. However, if you’ve seen me use a pattern before that you simply adore more than these…I’m willing to stamp the towel with another pattern for you.

#1

#2

#3

each image is slightly incomplete on purpose to prevent theft. If you are looking for a summer project leave me a comment and tell me which pattern is your favorite! Extra entries (as always) for sharing the link on your blog. Comments will be open until I go to bed on Saturday (17th) night!

I’ve been meaning to get a softie together for Softies For Mirabel to ship off to Pip for a few weeks now. I printed off Teresa Levy’s mouse pattern and gave it a wack. The results were awful (the pattern was great, it was my sewing that were the problem), the mouse looked like it had suffered a stroke. Thankfully my daughter isn’t very critical and is happy to haul mr. squeak around with her.

I decided to make my own pattern, a softie that wasn’t so small and that allowed for more hand sewing. Internet, please meet my new friend Ollie.

Best of all? I’m sharing the pattern. If someone would like to clean it up, please let me know, I’m struggling through illustrator. I did my best to explain how I pieced him together, but if my instructions aren’t clear please email me and I’ll try and help you.

I don’t know how to transition this but I know some of you are wondering how Saturday went. It went very well. Blissful Living is a studio that offers classes such as basic sewing, jewelry making, home storage, home decorating, digital scrapbooking, and personal style. The Personal Style class really appealed to me, believe it or not I am horrible about pairing clothes/shoes together. I’m trying to do all my shopping at J.Crew in an attempt to create a mixable wardrobe.

Heather Bailey was there and she had a few pieces from her new fabric collection. Swoon! She aptly described it as “spicy”, there are a few great reds in the mix. She was very friendly and so easy to talk with, she explained that her new collection should be in stores about July. Be sure to keep watching her blog though, she has LOTS of exciting things happening in the next few months.

Thanks for all the great comments- and thank you to everyone who hunted through their Valentines! I still haven’t found a card that I want to use, but I’m hunting ebay everyday!

The winner of the Vogart Rooster pattern is Joey! The winner of the Linky Love giveaway for the Vogart 192 pattern is Patty! Please send me your snail mail addresses and I’ll get these patterns out in the mail.

Because no post is complete without pictures here is my recently finished project, rocket ship burp cloths!

Yesterday I decided to swing by my favorite antique store just too see if they had any new/vintage patterns in. It was an incredibly successful trip, I was giddy like a kid in a sugar factory. I found four Vogart’s and one McCall’s transfer, a half gallon sized bag with Tri-chem, Artex and unknown patterns stuffed full and some vintage fabric (will be in the shop as soon as I can get good pics).

I guess I am a little bit late as last week was the vintage transfer week (thanks floresita, doe-c-doe and everyone else who posted patterns!) Here are the patterns that I am sharing from yesterdays finds:

Here is the best part though- I will be giving away a complete and uncut Vogart 646 transfer pattern.

All you have to do is leave me a comment, and if you link to this post from your blog I will enter you into the “linky love” give away (hee I just made that up!) for a chance to win another complete uncut Vogart transfer. The contest will end at 10pm PST on April 8, 2008.

**But WAIT**- I also need your help. I am working on an design for a client and I need to find a vintage cake graphic or illustration valentine with mommy and baby animals on it. If you could please search through your epherma for a fluffly vintage cake image vintage valentine I will become your new internet best friend! Actually if you have a valentine that I think will work I am willing to pay $5 for a high quality scan. Email me a photo of it, or send me a link to it on flickr- thanks!

A package arrived today with the vintage Superior 151 pattern I bought off ebay! I eagerly ripped it open and was so happy to see the crisp, complete never cut pattern!

I decided to share the love and scan this pattern for you. While I was at it I decided to scan a few of my Vogart’s in an attempt to help Floresita with her Vogart Index (here is another great resource, no actual patterns shared, but a list of what every pattern is and lots of envelope shots).

Sadly, my scans are not near as clean as doe-c-doe’s. I know my way around photoshop, but I can’t seem to figure out how everyone else can get such clean crisp lines. Forgive the smudges, I hope you enjoy them!

I know I said Monday, but we went out of town.  I told my husband to pick a number between 1-15 and he chose 14.  That means Melody is now the new owner of the embroidered bunny towel!

Thanks to everyone who commented!

Ok, here we go, how to complete a simple embroidery project!

First you need to find a pattern, pattern bee, flickr Hoop Love group, and Needlecrafter are all great places to find patterns. However, today’s pattern is a vintage Vogart provided by Jessie (thank you!). The first thing I did was download the pattern and open it up in Adobe Photoshop, I looked at the size and decided I didn’t want to change it, sometimes I shrink or enlarge patterns this way. It doesn’t matter if the pattern you print has slightly blurry lines, you are going to ink it crisp and clear.

2. Print Pattern
I use plain old white printer paper, does anyone have any other suggestions?

3. Use a Sulky Pen or a Heat Transfer Pencil (if you don’t have either- here is a great resource for other transfer methods) and trace your pattern, make sure you mark in clean crisp strokes.

4. Use your iron to stamp the pattern onto your fabric. I’m using an organic cotton flour sack towel that I grabbed at Target. The weave is very loose and I do not recommend it, Target does sell a fantastic white flour sack towel with a very tight weave!

5. Once your fabric is stamped pull out your embroidery threads and select color! I find that if I select colors ahead of time then I can make sure all the colors look good together.

I’ve chosen white for the bunny (however if you are stitching on a white fabric I would recommend a brown bunny), pink for the nose, blue for the eyes, black for the lashes (grey for the whiskers) and green for the tie.

6. Place fabric in an embroidery hoop, choose one large enough that you can stitch your whole design without having to move the hoop.

7. Whatever color of thread I will use the most is the color I start with, so I started with the white for the bunny. Embroidery floss consists of 6 tiny threads wrapped together. When I stitch designs I use 3 strands, so you’ll want to split your thread after you cut a length. When I do lettering I use 2 strands.

8. The outside of the bunny I stitched using a stem stitch, although I think a chain stitch would look nice here too. (I tried to take pictures of me doing the stitches for you, but they turned out just awful! So please follow the links to better illustrations.) Next I did the pink nose in a satin stitch , I also did the blue eyes that way too. The black lashes I did in a back stitch, I like the way it makes the lines of the eyes look crisp. The Whiskers are done in the same stem stitch as the bunny outline. For the green tie I demonstrated how the chain stitch looks, it is great for outlining things that you want to stand out a bit- think of it as the bold feature of stitching. For the dots of the tie I used french knots, this is a tricky knot. As your needle is coming up from the fabric wrap the tail of the thread around the needle 3 times and then pull the needle all the way up tightening the thread as you go. There is a great YouTube video showing how to do a french knot.

Ta Da! You are done! This little bunny took me about 45 min if you subtract all the photographing that I did! Please leave me a comment or shoot me an email (heather -at-heatherhalesdesigns-dot-com) if I lost you anywhere or you have questions about this project.

SURPRISE- One lucky reader can win this perfect easter towel! Just leave me a comment and let me know that you want him, I’ll pick a winner on Monday 3/10.

Also, Average Jane Crafter is giving away the yet-to-be-released new Sublime Stitching book of embroidery patterns, quick the contest is only open until Friday 3/7.

Wow, 91 comments for the giveaway! Thanks to everybody who stopped by and took the time to leave a comment, thank you! I decided I had enough trims to give away two boxes. Using the random number generator the two box winners are Sew Funky and Michelle Rosborough!! Please check your email and send me your snail mail addresses.

Thanks again to everyone who played! Be sure to check back this weekend I think I have at least one more post in me before Monday.

**comments are now closed, a BIG THANKS to everyone who stopped by!  I will pick a winner this afternoon.** 

On my way to the post office today I noticed that one of the neighborhood churches was holding a Rummage Sale. After swinging by Burger King for snacks for the little girl we stopped. Am I glad I did, check out this huge box of vintage tapes/trims and such!!

I also picked up this sweet scalloped shelf which I think will look great in the kids room after I paint it yellow.

It is a gray kind of day here in the desert, which makes me just want to crawl back into bed with a good book. Last week I devoured The Lost Mother by Mary McGarry Morris, it was so raw and so real. It brought back feelings I had forgotten that I had felt as a child. Yesterday I picked up another book by her and was disappointed to find it was an Oprah Book, I can’t put voice to why this bothers me but it does. I’m forcing myself to finish some custom orders before I can climb back into bed and read it.

A glimmer of sun was added to this cloudy day when I heard from Frances Vintage that the embroidered onesies I sold her 2 weeks ago have been selling really well and she has placed another larger order! In an effort to share that ray of sunshine with everyone I’m going to put together a Vintage Trim Box to send to one lucky reader! Leave me a comment telling me what you would like to see more of on this blog and you will be entered into the contest for the trim box. I think I’ll keep this open for a whole week, so I’ll close comments on Friday, 29 Feb. 2008.