A happy Monday all around!
Although there are a mere four days left until Christmas, I want to share with you a tutorial I wrote for using soluble canvas on plain weave fabric, along with three new holiday stitching patterns.
These are quick projects to stitch up – even the larger of the three patterns works up fast! – so there’s still time, if you’re adventurous, to whip up a handmade gift or two before Friday.
I loved stitching those samples in the photo above! They were fun! I used regular white DMC floss and some embroidery blanks (which I purchased through All About Blanks).
When you use blanks (which are pre-finished items normally made for machine embroidery, but which work equally as well for hand embroidery), all you have to do is the fun part – the stitching! The finish work is already done for you!
You’ll find a thorough tutorial on how to use DMC water soluble canvas and the free charts for the designs featured above on DMC’s website, Commonthread. You’ll also find suggestions on what to stitch the patterns on and some ideas on gift-giving with handmade items.
This past year, I had the pleasure of teaming up with DMC on a series of articles, which you can find on the Commonthread blog, here. There’s one article not published yet and one in the works for next year (due to a delay on my end).
It was a lot of fun writing for DMC and a real honor to do so! I consider DMC a stalwart, tried-and-true company in the needlework world, and their blog team was great to work with. I’ve always found DMC threads reliable, and I use them pretty much whenever I need cotton embroidery threads. In fact, they manufacture my two favorite cotton threads, floche and coton a broder. I use their floss and pearl cotton extensively, too. So I was quite happy to team up with them in 2015!
I hope you enjoy the tutorial and the free patterns. You can mix and match the patterns with any of the recent folky cross stitch patterns I’ve posted lately, too, which makes them even more fun!
Coming Up on Needle ‘n Thread
I’ll pop in on Thursday of this week to share with you some of my recent stitching adventures. They haven’t been too wildly adventurous, but I’ve managed to finish up a few little bits of stitchery hither and yon.
Then I’m going to do something I’ve never done before in the nine years I’ve been writing Needle ‘n Thread: I’m going to take a full-fledged, all-out vacation from the blog, from December 25th through January 4th.
During the break, I’ll be focusing calmly on upcoming content for January and 2016, while enjoying a more restful-than-normal Christmas season.
I’ll see you on Thursday with an update!
Have a wonderful week!
