July Round-Up

August is already here and it means it's time for the traditional round-up! Check if you missed anything on Stitch Floral in the past month :) Also, catch the news about the upcoming sale at the end of the post!

But before we start, I would like to mention some exciting news :)

StitchFloral blog got into the list of Top 25 embroidery blogs by Feedpost! Yay!!

It's an honor to be in the same list with many other blogs that I myself follow and which taught me and helped me in my own hand embroidery journey. Thank you to all of you who read my blog and find it useful!

Now, to the July Round-up!

July Round-up

First of all, there was an update in the Etsy store! Anima is a colorful and bright water lily, it is full of subtle symbolism (well, at least that's what I see in it, but maybe it can have a different meaning for you!). This design provides great ground for practicing long and short stitch and blending, because it is one of the core elements of the design. You can read more about this design, about the idea behind it and how it came to life :)

There was also a giveaway event following a wonderful book release. Read my review of “Stunning stitches for crazy quilts” - although its main purpose is to make life easier for crazy quilters and provide a ready catalog of border stitches, it is just as useful for surface embroidery enthusiasts and worth having in your library.

The freebies tag got updated with a new design that combines simple ribbon embroidery stitches with easy surface stitches. I promise it is really easy and quick to work! Besides, the freebie does not include just a pattern but full instructions with step by step pictures. You will tackle it, I'm sure! :)

Speaking of your works, I finally dedicated a separate post to your embroidery results from my patterns and designs. Please keep sending me your results and tagging me on Instagram, I can't express enough how much I LOVE seeing your works!

Finally, here is a tutorial for a very easy DIY pin cushion. It's a perfect solution when you want something quick and pretty, especially if you have a spare cup, jar or creamer :)

Future plans

Something I would like to share is that I'm going to start practicing watercolor :) Well, technically, I already started, but the results are still meh, haha.

I already spoke about the use of drawing skills in hand embroidery here. And reading this article about how famous creative professionals had side hobbies that not many people know about, reminded me about that.

The main thing that I want to learn from watercolor is a better understanding of how colors work together. I'm a person who doesn't rely much on color wheel, because whenever I want to find a good combination with it, I totally don't like the results... Yeah, that's my dirty secret. Whether the problem is with me or not, I don't know. But I hope painting sessions will let me understand this better :) I will show you my results as soon as I achieve something decent, haha.

Also, I already started working on the new set of Jewels. You can see a draft for one of them in the title picture. Can you guess which precious stone inspired it? I think this one must be easy to guess! Please anticipate two new designs of pretty flowers with new geometric frames!

Finally, I just hit 10K subscribers on Instagram! YAY! I was a bit cautious about it because the numbers kept changing and tumbling to and front, haha. But seems like now it is finally concrete! This calls for a sale of -10% and giveaway, so please please check my Instagram to keep updated! I'm going to announce it there soon :)