Yellow gingham and boots.

I've loved Lucky Jackson's embroidery pieces ever since the first time I saw them. They're just so unique. Here's what I love about them: 1) They're like drawings...like art. 2) She uses the coolest fabrics in her designs. 3) She often stitches tributes to her interests. I like to do that, too...embroider weird things that I love. That's how I ended up with cross-stitched Princess Bride characters and Nessie.

So I was super excited when I found out she was releasing patterns of some of her pieces! I bought my two favorites: Boot Love and Dropping the Needle.

The patterns are great, but I had a hard time wrapping my brain around how to go about stitching when I started the boot one. And the pattern doesn't include detailed instructions for doing the applique. Creating the background was easy enough. But how to applique the yellow gingham to cotton and trace around the shape and then fuse it on to the main fabric, keeping in mind that I'm using fusible web and a purple disappearing ink marker (that's not supposed to be ironed over until it's disappeared or washed out).

I started off by cutting out and fusing the yellow gingham to the plain white cotton. Then I cut out around the edge of that and fused it onto the background. But when I went to tape it to my window to trace the embroidery lines, I realized that *duh* the layers were so thick that I couldn't see the lines to trace. So I tore the fused fabric off the background (in a panicky moment) and tried again (after about a week of procrastinating).

This is what I ended up doing: I traced the outline of the dress from the pattern and cut it out of my yellow gingham. Then I fused that onto plain cotton. Then I taped the pattern and fabric to my window and traced and embroidered the lines. It was nerve-racking to stitch so close to the edge of the yellow, but it worked out fine. :) When I was finished embroidering everything in black, I carefully cut around the outer edge of the embroidery, leaving about a 1/4 inch border. Then I fused that piece onto my background fabric using fusible web. I probably could have left it like that, but the fusible stuff didn't work so well on the faux suede and lace I used, so I went around and stitched the fabric down in that 1/4 inch border. The end! Not as complicated or difficult as I thought after I finally understood what order to do things in and then just dove in instead of putting it off. :)

And I am so happy with the end result. It's probably one of my favorite things I've embroidered.

I used a printed seersucker (with the tiniest bit of stretch) that I found in my stash for the "wallpaper" background. I used leftover brown fake suede for the floor, and some vintage lace (folded in half, because it was about 1 inch wide) as the line in the middle.

It's framed in a 10 inch hoop (the biggest hoop on my wall so far). I wrapped the hoop in some of the small yellow gingham I used for the dress.

I've had to move some things around on my (cluttered) walls to give my embroidered pieces more room. :) These are just a portion...I have about 10 more pieces scattered elsewhere in my room (on other walls, sitting on bookcases, etc.) and a few more in the sewing area. I think I might have a problem. If this keeps up, someday I'll have a room with nothing but embroidery hanging on the walls.

Until next time,