Hello friends! Just wanted to show off one of my latest projects, a little hand embroidery for a friend's baby shower :)  Ever since taking the hand embroidery class at The Needle Shop in Chicago, I have been a little obsessed with "drawing with thread" on various things! The first thing I completed was a bag that said "stitch" and featured different stitches on each letter.  For the baby shower, I had a harder task in front of me when I decided to embroider onesies.


One tricky thing about this particular shower is that the parents aren't finding out the gender of the baby, which is awesome, so I couldn't go uber girly or dapper and manly like the last two. Soooo I ended up embroidering two onesies, one at the request of the Dad, and one to practice :)


My first try! The peanut - which is what they always call the little fetus since it can't be "he" or "she" yet. As you can see, the smile got a little lopsided, so "happy" peanut might look a little like "confused" peanut or "terrified" peanut. I digress. It was funny enough to gift.

My second onesie..... I'm about to lay some major dork-ness out here.... don't judge.


You may know that I enjoy sewing, and if you follow closely you may even know that I teach music and love peanut butter. What you may not know about me is that I love, L-O-V-E, watching Japanese anime. That's right - animated cartoons in Japanese with ninjas and alchemists and pirates and space cowboys and ... well anyways, the dad of the new little baby happens to avidly watch one of our favorites, a show called NARUTO! The embroidered symbol above is the Leaf Village, which is where the hero, and basically all the most awesome characters, are from, and they're ninjas. It may sound silly, but it's good. So good that we have watched not 100, not 200, but almost FIVE HUNDRED episodes....

Rockin' a Leaf Village headband last fall.... If you thought I was cool before... sorry (lol)
Okay, I like ninjas, and here are some thoughts on EMBROIDERING KNITS!!!

- Use a cut away stabilizer, not tear away. Too risky to pull out stitches
- Cut the stabilizer area LARGER than the hoop you will be using
- Pin the stabilizer to the knit, and leave in or baste so that while embroidering, knit doesn't stretch
- Don't leave the knit in the hoop for super long periods of time or it might leave permanent stretch marks
- If embroidering a onesie, use a large safety pin to hold back all of the rest of the onesie while you stitch
- Go slow and be aware if the knit is stretching wonky - straighten it out and stitch carefully

Don't be afraid, though - you CAN embroider knits and it can make great gifts!!!

After all that knit embroidery, I was ready for something easy, so I decided to make up a card at one in the morning:


My friend Jamie, the mom, loves woodland creatures, especially squirrels. I found this little squirrel motif in the book Doodle Stitching by Aimee Ray and stitched it twice as the mom and dad squirrels. I then sketched my own little baby squirrel in the middle. If you look closely, you will see that the mom was stitched with brown thread, the dad with gray, and the baby with brown and gray... awwwww :)


The fabric on the front is also special, as it is from some couch pillows I made for Jamie (the mom) a couple of years ago. These also happen to feature a squirrel and bird... I'm telling you, woodland creature love!

I stitched the fabric right onto the card stock and even made a matching pocket inside for a gift card :)

So there you have it! A couple very fun and easy embroidery projects that I could have never found RTG (ready-to-gift.... idk just go with me here). I can't wait to do some more projects with the book I purchased from Kollabora with my Scout Tee winnings: Embroidered Effects by Jenny Hart. Loving my new craft :)