April Round-Up

May has already started which means it's time to reminisce what happens on Stitch Floral for the past month!

Actually, I went traveling around the middle of April, so packing and preparations plus getting used to the new place threw me out of the schedule quite heavily. Sorry for that, I will try to catch up this month with everything I planned to write about!

And nevertheless, I still have some news for you! Especially if you are a francophone stitcher!

Check out the website Letempsdebroder where you can find hand embroidery projects translated to French and where I'm honored to have my recent Jewel series too!

See Amber PDF tutorial in French here. The content of the document stays the same, including the stitch lessons, diagrams and all of the instructions! Rhodochrosite will appear there soon as well.

If you want to know more about Jewel Series, I talked about it in more details in this article so be sure to check it out. They are my newest hand embroidery designs with the accent on long and short stitching practice with dozens of step by step pictures :)

By the way, on Letempsdebroder you can also find my Portrait which is a small cozy interview of sorts about how I started stitching, where I draw my inspiration from, about my favorite techniques and role-models. All in French, of course!

April Round-up

Speaking of inspiration, it was an important topic here on Stitch Floral last month. I used to get questions on this matter on Instagram so decided to give a more in-depth insight here. That's how two posts were born: where I find my inspiration and 6 things to do when you're facing a creative block.

It's really hard to explain how and when you get inspiration and ideas from because most of the times it just happens spontaneously and when you least expect that. But what I did notice is that you can actually “nurture” and prepare the ground for the idea to come. In my case, I sometimes do visual marathons that help me with my imagination.

There are also other tricks you can use to attract inspiration when you're facing a creative block, which I wrote more detailed about in the second post. The most important thing, however, I believe is to not pressure yourself and keep a positive attitude. Even if you have a deadline, just scribble/doodle something, explore art pieces you like and find amusing, in a way of artistic brainstorming, you know. And if there are no time frames, then just nurture your inspiration in the most comfortable way you can and don't anxious. But be prepared because it will most probably come when you are doing the laundry or washing your pet.

As for the new stitches, in April we started on detached buttonhole with the two common ways to work it... aaand left it there because I was a bit busy, haha. Well, this month we have a mission to learn as much as we can about this stitch and technique because it is really worth adding to your embroidery arsenal and it deserves more coverage. So yes, the plan for May is to explore detached buttonhole in more details!

May plans

My personal goal is to finish the new embroidery design I have in my mind. The preparations are completed, the pattern is ready, the colors are decided, so now I only need to work it and create instructions. By the way, it is very colorful! Probably the most colorful embroidery I've ever done, can't wait to see how it works out on the fabric :)

Next up, I want to explore detached buttonhole in more detail: how to use it on irregular shapes, how to work some of its variations and also explore the “real” detached buttonhole. Yes, the one form the last month is actually an imposter!

There will hopefully be some other topics this month, but I don't want to get too ahead of myself in case I still won't be able to revive my schedule in full scale...sigh.

Hope you are having a great time wherever you are! See you!