Here in Kansas, Autumn is spreading over the landscape pretty quickly. The trees are changing color, chilly nights are the norm, and Fallishness is showing up everywhere!
To celebrate my favorite season, I’ve put together another collection of ready-to-stitch autumn towels featuring maple leaves, oak leaves and acorns, and, of course, a pumpkin. The new set, called Autumn Variety, is available now in my shop.
It’s a fun set! The designs are a little less complicated than the Festive Fall design (which is also in stock right now) and they work up pretty quickly. You’ll have them adorning your autumn kitchen before you know it!
These sets are definitely embroidery for relaxation, and now that the darkness falls from the wings of night a little bit earlier each day, it’s a perfect time to cozy up to this type of stitching.
Let’s take a closer look at the set, and I’ll tell you a bit about my color choices and stitches.
The designs on all three ready-to-stitch towels in the Autumn Variety set are transferred on the center lower edge of each towel. There are no corner designs in the set, as each design is arranged in more of a linear layout than a corner cluster.
Like the other ready-to-stitch sets sold on Needle ‘n Thread, these designs benefit from a simple approach to stitching. On the samples, we used a combination of chain stitch, stem stitch, some Palestrina stitch, whipped chain, whipped backstitch, fly stitch, seed stitch, and the like.
In short, there’s nothing complex about the stitching!
That said, you can choose your own stitches, and you can go as simple as you want or as complex as you want!
You can see that the designs transfer clearly, with easy to see (and easy to cover) lines.
With my interpretation of the pumpkin, because it is somewhat large, I used four strands (from the six) of DMC embroidery floss, and I chain stitched the main design lines. Then, I used two strands and whipped the chain stitch. This gave me a heavy outline for most of the pumpkin.
I achieved the shaded look with the whip stitching on the chain stitch. After embroidering all the outlines in the same orange (with four strands of floss, in chain stitch), I used the whipped stitches to give the pumpkin some depth, whipping the chain stitch on the front sections in a lighter orange, then the next sections back in the same orange as the chain stitch, and then I used a darker orange on the back sections of the pumpkin.
For the “highlights” on the pumpkin, I used two strands of DMC and stem stitch in the lightest orange.
For the stem, I mixed browns and a variegated green-yellow-brown combination and worked it in stem stitch, filling just the top of the stem with stem stitch worked in close rows. The tendrils are Palestrina stitch, worked in the variegated green-yellow-brown.
These are just ideas of how you can stitch the pumpkin – or any other elements in this set. They’re not explicit instructions.
The idea behind this type of embroidery is that you have the opportunity to use the colors you want to use, the stitches you like, and so forth – don’t feel tied down to someone else’s interpretation! These projects are a great way to practice choosing and combining colors and choosing stitches that will work well to interpret simple designs.
With some of the leaves on the maple leaf design line, I did the same thing. I used chain stitch or back stitch as the foundation along the outline of the leaf, and then, to give the impression of a changing color, I whipped the stitches with variegated autumn colors, or with lighter golds, oranges, and reds.
The inside veins of the leaves are stem stitched with two strands, and I often used two different colors in the needle at once to give some good variation to the veins.
So, for example, on the gold leaf in the photo above, I used a darker reddish variegated thread and a gold and brown variegated thread, and threaded one strand of each in the needle to stem stitch the veins.
On the outline of that leaf, I worked a regular chain stitch (not whipped), mixing three different colors of thread in the needle.
Color Choices
When it came to choosing colors for this particular set, I went through my DMC threads and pulled out autumn colors that I thought would work. I arranged them all in a tray, and just used what I wanted, as the whim struck.
I used a combination of solid DMC 6-stranded cotton and DMC Variations, which is DMC’s line of specialty variegated (over-dyed) 6-stranded cotton floss.
These are the colors I used, but you won’t necessarily need them all! If I were buying threads for this, I’d randomly pick out autumn-colored threads that I like and I’d just mix things up as I went. But if you want a workable list to start out, here it is:
DMC Variations: 4070, 4073, 4124, 4128, 4129, 4130, 4135, 4205
DMC Solids & regular variegated (sold with the solids): 90, 321, 420, 741, 742, 781, 898, 947, 970, 971, 3852
Get Your Towel Sets!
If you’d like the Autumn Variety towels, you’ll find a limited quantity available here in my shop right now. If they sell out, drop me a line to put you on the Advanced Notice list for the next batch.
Each set includes three white cotton flour sack towels, approximately 27″ x 27″, hemmed on all sides, with a hanging loop in the corner. One of three of the different designs in the set is pre-transferred at the center base of each towel.
The transfer will wash out after laundering, significantly after the first laundering and after that, it will fade with subsequent washing. For the best results, cover the design lines with embroidery. Additional fabric tips are included with each towel set.
The towel sets are available only in the US at this time, due to international shipping costs, constraints, and hiccups. The towel sets are mailed via Priority mail to US addresses normally on the day the order is placed, if ordered before noon Central Time.
To expedite the shipping process, when you place your order, please make sure your shipping address is entered correctly.
And that’s that! A new set, that I hope you will enjoy stitching as much as I enjoyed it!
I have a bunch of ready-to-stitch designs available at the moment – you can find them all listed here. Might be a good time to combine several sets to save on shipping, especially if you want to stitch some up for Christmas, or to give as gifts throughout the year!
