Inspiration: Pin Pals

We're starting a new series of sorts: Inspiration. We ask someone what inspired a stitched piece, and they tell us what their inspiration was. Simple as that. Because we love hearing what inspires people. We hope you do too!

We start the series of with this great piece from Pin Pals (great name, too, right?!)

My inspiration for this piece came from necessity of sorts. The studio space I work in is having a group show in a couple of weeks based on the letter J. I went through a lot of J words and none of them really grabbed me, so I decided to look at the dictionary, and one of the first words was "Janitors" ...that one stuck. The image of janitors working together in a house came to mind, the rest I sorted out on graph paper. I see them as cleaning house, literally and metaphorically. They are spring cleaning janitors here to help us out.

Check out Pin Pal's Flickr and blog.

Alice in Red

What is not to love about these perfectly executed Alice in Wonderland embroideries? Martha from Q is for Quilter used old illustrations to make redwork quilt blocks. She used only one strand of floss to stitch the beautiful crisp lines and many small details. 

On Martha's blog you will find images of all the six quilt blocks she embroidered thus far, and a link to the cleaned up illustrations as well so you can stitch your own. I know I can't wait to wait to try my hand at one! I also had a look around Martha's shop and she makes the most beautiful aprons from vintage fabrics and some with hand embroidered details too. Well worth a visit!

Cate Anevski - Issue 2 featured designer

1 :: 2 :: 3 :: 4

As you know, Cate Anevski is our featured stitchy designer in Issue 2 and we wanted to show you just a little bit of the fun stuff Cate gets up to. We absolutely love the design she made for Issue 2 - here's a little peak at it, it's actually a set of two!

Her style is so fun and quirky, really special we think! Although Cate mostly does embroidery patterns, she also designs sew-your-own custom-printed dresses for Blythe dolls and softies from time to time.

Check out Cate's blog and shop.

Thank you, Cate!

Hunt for the Red Dot

I love this fun piece called Three cats and a laser by Alexis Helmrath! I think most (if not all) cats have the same reaction to laser pointers! I know my cat Tijger loves to hunt after the little red dot.  Read more about this embroidery on Alexis's blog.

Owl be the winner

A bit later than planned but we finally got around to picking a winner for our 'Stitch & Win' contest! The idea was that you would make something from or something inspired by our first Issue.  The (randomly) chosen winner is Jenelle!

One of the articles in Issue 1 was about finding colour inspiration in your home and Jenelle stitched this adorable little fellow inspired by colours from a vintage travel poster. A little birdie (owlet?) told me that this pattern (pillow + embroidery) will be available for purchase soon. :)

Laughing gnome by Mimilove

Laughing gnome stitchyness, a photo by mimilove forever on Flickr.

I am absolutely smitten with the work of Mimilove. The quirky combination of stitching and painted imagery not to mention her frequent use of song lyrics etc. make for some really unique pieces. And they're colourful too and in my book that's always a good thing!

What I especially love about this piece, though, is the smiley faces, how cute are they?! :-)

Check out more of Mimilove's work in her Flickr stream.

Stitch-a-header update!

Fab letter 'C' submitted by Jasmine

You may remember that we asked you, our beloved stitchy friends, for some help with putting together a stitched blog header for our blog 'ransom letter style'. The idea was that we at least would try and put together the words &Stitches from your efforts, the word Blog was optional.

The good news is that we have most of the lettering for the &Stitches ready. Thank you for all the beautifully stitched letters you have submitted so far! The only missing letter is the letter S (twice). For the word Blog we only have a G (but we do  have three of those!) Unless I haven't been paying attention and missing letters *are* posted somewhere in our Flickr group and I just didn't notice it. In that case let me know... Or if you have a letter in the works but haven't got around to posting it or aren't quite ready yet, let us know too!  Lettering from previous stitched letters (in a sampler for example) are also very welcome  :)  Looking forward to see some of the missing letters appear in the &Stitches Flickr group!