Miniature stitching

Last couple of days I was busy with these miniatures. The idea came all of a sudden as soon as I decided to make new pincushions.

The needle and the bobin, as well as hand lettering, are worked in back stitch with one strand of cotton floss in the needle. I probably should have made my back stitch smaller when I stitched the needle, but I noticed it late and left it like that. By the way, it's actually not my hand lettering – I used the lovely Shorelines font. It's much better than my ugly scribbling, ha.

As for the rest of embroidery, it was mostly freestyle. The only definite stitches are stem stitch for the thread which blossoms into floral motif, and french knots for small floral buds and the centers of flowers. All of the work is done with one strand of floss. The flowers are worked in something that can be called long and short stitch. I call it “something” because I wasn't really aiming for that stitch, just outlined the shapes and filled them in a random way, throwing the bright red in the middle of them later.

Although these miniatures are rather small, it actually took me two days to complete them. I had a slow start because I was embroidering holding the fabric in the hand – I placed the designs near the corners of fabric piece for the sake of saving it. And because of that, I couldn't use my standard hoop. And I don't have a small one. Sigh. 

But things went faster went I started using sewing method of stitching rather than the piercing one which I got used to thanks to working in the hoop all the time. “Hand sewing” really fastens up the things when you embroider having fabric in hands.

All in all, it was a pleasing experience stitching these. I'm always looking forward to having some embroidery practice. Although currently, it distracts me from a bigger project I have on my mind, ouch... Anyway, as for the miniatures, eventually, I hope to make them into the pincushions of different sizes. Will report when I get them done :)

Hope you had a terrific weekend :)