Embroidery Love

Hello!  I am Andee over at The Modern Diary and as you know by now if you read Jane, she has started having guest bloggers for the love of hand embroidery every Monday.  This past summer, Jane asked for volunteers to try out her floss--Presencia threads with any embroidery design they wanted to feature on her blog between August and December of 2013.  I was up for the challenge and I was a happy girl when I got the beautiful threads in the mail!  It was so much fun picking out what I would embroider.  I spent quite awhile browsing through Pinterest and the web, and even bought a few books.  :)

You may recall I am brand new to embroidery.  I have done some redwork and bluework, but not much--and I several months ago I took a class over at the Phoenix Modern Quilt Guild in which I learned some basic embroidery stitches like these...

I then happily completed my first project which was this elephant pillow! 

Seriously it was fun surfing Pinterest and some websites to find the perfect little stitchery to use these threads on!  For Jane's challenge, I finally decided on this cute little gnome pattern!  I started working on it while on a road trip and then finished it up by the end of summer.  

I was having so much fun I decided to make Hug-Bot which was a freebie from Sublime Stitching too!

A Little Bit of Everything

 I worked early Friday morning and then we went and fed the ducks and geese.  This is something Kathy loves to do and I oblige her every year or so :)
When we got home I got right to sewing and made this little teapot.  I had a free pattern and thought it was paper piecing but wasn't numbered...when I actually looked at the tutorial I discovered it wasn't!  So I did some creative folding and tucking to make it sort of work.  I realized by then I should have used a dark background or a smaller print for my teapot so it would be easier to see.  It was fun to make anyway and it is hanging on my bulletin board, lol.

 

 I then found some actual paper piecing and made this tiny pineapple block--for no particular reason.

 Next I paper pieced four flying geese sections (pattern was from Angela for Hawaii Sunset geese, but at the time I didn't know how to paper piece so I kept it for future use!).  Can't show pics of that project just yet, but they will be coming soon :)

Then I spent some time organizing my bin of Eye Spy squares and hexies.  I cut a few more and then sewed one stack together.  It isn't big enough yet--needs more variety so back in the bin it went til later.

 Paper pieced another Wild and Goosey block.  Finally starting to seem like a decent amount on the design wall!  It is all Bonnie Hunter of quiltville on my wall!

 Then I traced out stitched up this freebie from Sublime Stitching for my nephew Ben.  It went really quickly!

So far today watching the Packers.  I did bike while they were on and realized that I haven't updated my trying to eat right and more more in a long time!  I am still trying to do that and I have lost 32 pounds since I started June 1st of this year.  I have a long way to go but they say slow and steady wins the race...:)