Big Stitch Embroidery

In March, my branch of the Irish Patchwork Society had a sit and sew night.  We try to do that once a year where all of our members gather round our tables and we all work on the same type of project.  We've done EPP (English Paper Piecing), Needleturn Applique, Hand Quilting and this year I volunteered to lead the group in what I call Big Stitch Embroidery (uses big stitch quilting with embroidery stitches).

Inspired by Laura Wasilowski, whose book Fanciful Colourful Stitches is in our branch library, I came up with this bird house and a flowers in vase design, that we could make on the night. It's a technique I had wanted to try and I had it in mind for this Endeavourer's challenge as a new to me technique.  I thought it would be fun to share with our branch too. Two birds with one stone, so to speak.

 

I love perle cotton (I've been told this is primarily used for crochet but quilters have adopted it for hand stitching).  I used size 8 and 12 for this project but embroidery floss works just as well.

Using scraps and Bondaweb fusible paper, I cut shapes to make the applique and took inspiration from Laura Wasilowski's book (she has a class on Craftsy too if you want video instruction) to add embellishment with embroidery stitches.

I used cross stitch, running stitch, stem stitch and back stitch to outline the shapes and french knots, pistil stitch, sheath stitch and stab stitch to add texture and it was a lot of fun!

It doesn't take very much scraps of fabric to make a composition and I found it very relaxing to add in the running stitch as a quilted background.

This was an odd size as I was winging it (?) with the composition.  Originally I thought about binding the piece but almost everything I have made in these challenges has ended up framed.  I searched through the frames squirreled away about the house and found this, that just about fits.  

Its a teeny bit tight, and I may have to look for a bigger frame, but for now I have some happy birds building a nest and are ready for Spring. It makes me feel like I could get on with the weeding and planting and get the garden all ready too.

This was fun and reminded me how nice it is to do handwork once in a while.