Crafts have always been around and were encouraged ever since I was a child. My family is full of creatives, whether it is art in the form of quilting, sewing, Watercolor painting, Craft painting, music, woodworking, or gardening, among so many others. It was not hard to find inspiration and encouragement when it came to expressing myself through art, no matter what medium I decided to try that day.
I knew at a very young age that I found the most pleasure in drawing and painting, but I always enjoyed trying my hand at many of the other mediums, and that included embroidering and cross-stitch.
After junior high, when I was more into cross-stitch, I didn't revisit stitching until 2010 when I started working at a local needlepoint shop here in Philadelphia. I worked there from 2010 until 2016. Working in retail has its struggles, but I did discover that I do still enjoy stitching, particularly embroidery. To me, embroidery is a very easy transition from painting. You are pretty much drawing and painting in thread.
I haven't designed my own patterns yet, but I have worked from some I found in books or purchased transfer patterns for.
Recently when I decided to start making food from my favorite anime I decided that I wanted to finally embroider some napkins. These will officially be used in a future blog post (you'll have to come back to see what recipe I feature them with), but I thought it would be fun to post these finished pieces here to show the other kinds of art I enjoy pursuing when I'm not painting and drawing on paper.
I got these patterns from a Japanese embroidery book I bought at Kinokuniya in NYC. It is by Yumiko Higuchi, whose website you can see here. These were quick and fun little projects, a couple of them taking only a couple hours to finish. I definitely plan on doing more projects from this book.
Another project I finished a few weeks ago is one that I have been working on for over a year. I haven't spent a lot of time on it though, since I've been more preoccupied with painting, but when I finished the napkins I knew that I needed to finish this one before I start any other embroidery projects.
This project is made from a Sublime Stitching design. I love Sublime Stitching's designs. They are all contemporary designs, and are great for encouraging younger stitchers to get into the craft. Definitely check out their website. There are lots of designs, many of which you can purchase PDFs of to download to your computer instead of purchasing the physical copy (if you don't want to wait for it to come in the mail to get started on your next project), and they even sell stitching supplies and threads too! I can attest that their stitching accessories are super cute!
I plan on getting a cute little frame to hang this up on my wall by the front door. It is the perfect entryway piece for my apartment.
When I purchased the pack of grey handkerchiefs I also purchased a pack of white ones too, and I have been debating what I want to stitch on them. I have another idea for a future recipe post that I may incorporate into this project....check back later to see what I come up with.
If you have any favorite embroiderers or pattern companies you like to use let me know! I am always interested in finding new inspiration for my crafting projects. :)