With October already outside the window, it's time to say bye-bye to September, reminiscence what we've done during the past month and decide the plans for the following weeks :)
Don't know about you, but I finally felt the fall vibes during the past month, what with the foliage trying yellow and reddish colors on, the air getting chiller at last and the cheeks getting rosy when you have walks stomping on the crunchy leaves. Ah! I actually really love this time of the year! If only the sun shone more frequently, sigh...
Hope you're experiencing a nice weather too, wherever you are now :)
Anyway, back to the business, haha.
Coffee
Quick news before I proceed! Stitch Floral has a Ko-fi account now, where you can buy me a symbolic coffee. Naturally, it is more like a form of expressing your appreciation and the donations will allow to develop this place.
Last month I had to make a choice whether I should place google ads on the blog or not... The blog is slowly growing and if I want to spend more time on it and let it evolve further I need to start monetizing it to open new opportunities and tools.
But in the end, I decided against that. I like this place free of any ads because it is something that often ticks me off when I browse other sites... I really don't want to compromise the comfort and “cleanliness” of this place.
So in any case, I won't place any ads on this blog and will keep it clean as much as possible. We will see how it goes.
But if you share my sentiment, you can buy me a symbolic coffee here or through the button on a sidebar, it will help a lot :)
Round-up
Last month we learned 6 new stitches! But because I didn't want to post too many lessons and make it too overwhelming, I paired them up. So now we have 3 couple lessons:
All of these stitches belong to the “braid” family, thanks to their looks and interweaving elements you can notice here and there. I actually believe that we could include here the heavy chain and braided chain as well, but since we've already learned them as part of the chain family, they stayed there.
Braid stitches are quite dimensional, fit for working thicker lines and borders. I've barely seen them being used as fillers, to be honest, but doesn't mean it's not possible? Especially if we speak about smaller oval shapes like leaves. In this case, basket stitch, vandyke, ladder, and loop stitches are quite suitable for such experiments!
The braid stitch and plaited braid stitch (yes, they are relatives) are probably the most complicated out of this bunch, but I tried to make it simple enough for you to follow the instructions. Frankly speaking, you just need to try a few times. Then it will flow like an automatic routine.
Speaking of the stitches, if you only start your journey in hand embroidery, here are 10 basic stitches that you can learn first which will help you tackle practically any design out there. You have there line stitches (simple ones and more intricate ones), filling stitches, knots, and loops. Knowing these stitches will help you work pretty much any pattern you can find on Pinterest :)
And if you want to learn more, you can always visit our local Stitch Library!
And we also tried 2 new tutorials here in September.
First one would be the framing tutorial, a slight evolution from mounting on a simple art canvas that we've talked about before. Framing is not really difficult as long as you have the materials. More specifically, you would need to find a cardboard of a proper thickness. The easiest place to get it, I suppose, would be craft and art supplies stores. The rest of the materials and tools shouldn't be a problem to find.
Mounting hand embroidery on a wooden canvas is something I would like to speak about some day as well... Would anyone be interested? I have to confess, I haven't tried it yet, although there is a couple of wooden canvases hiding in my cupboard, that were ordered before and now are waiting for their chance to be used.
Lastly, we learned how to make a DIY hand embroidered brooch! Ah, I've actually been wearing it ever since the day I made it. No joking, haha. Don't know, I just love it so much, it really lifts my mood up whenever my eyes lay upon it. There is always a special pleasure in wearing/using something you made with your own hands, isn't there?
As a matter of fact, this is just one method of making a brooch. And since I bought several brooch pins... yup, gonna try more! Maybe there will be another tutorial(s?) with a slightly different approach. Can't promise anything yet, I need to test my ideas first. But it is something I'm looking forward to myself, haha.
October plans
Hmmm what will October bring to us on Stitch Floral?
First of all, new stitches! But this month I want to take a step back from the ...hm.. graphic stitches? I'm not sure how I should call them. Anyway, I want to venture into the decorative floral techniques that you can use to work beautiful bouquets. How does it sound?
Needlepainting tips will make a comeback! There is a method of shading that is not shared in the textbooks, and you can hardly find it out in the web space (I stumbled upon it by pure accident), but which is worth discussing. Maybe you will like it more?
And something else. I'm going to start a practice piece. Actually, I just want to spend my old stock of beads and I found a fitting pattern on Pinterest. So I will work it and share my progress, and I will encourage you to join :) Look forward to the next post to learn more details!
Let's have a productive month together, everyone!
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