Oooooooh! I’ve been playing with monograms again!

You know what I love about embroidered monograms? I love the fact that they are self-contained projects that don’t take very long to work up into their finished glory. They can be stitched on practically anything textile-related, and voilá – you have a Finished Thing!

Fairly simple monograms – like the ones I’ll show you today – can be whipped up in no time. A weekend of intermittent stitching will easily get you to the finish line!

With Valentine’s Day tomorrow, I thought I’d share a glimpse of the two latest letter styles I’ve been playing with. Admittedly, there’s a bit of sugar shock going on here, but…now and then…we all need a little something sweet in our lives, don’t we?

These concoctions started out as an adaptation of an old monogram alphabet from Alexandre. The original one was rather plain and I thought it was a bit boring.

But when I started thinking about it, I realized that it could be fairly easily adapted into all kinds of fun approaches.

So I started with hearts…and that lead me to other things, like the bees, below.

The re-drawn letters have been sitting half-finished on my computer for the last year or so. Finally, I started stitching samples last week.

To work up the first sample in the heart design, I rummaged through my linen boxes and found a pre-finished blank cotton towel with red and white trim – a perfect canvas for some quick stitching that would develop into something giftable.

I used floche for the thread, which made the whole process very pleasant! (If you’re not sure what floche is, you can read about it here and here.)

Knowing that some folks don’t have access to floche, I also started a sample using regular floss, mixing up the stitches a bit. This is as far as I’ve gotten on that particular sample, but I plan to finish it today.

Once the first heart sample was finished, I launched into my second idea for these particular letters.

Bees.

I love bees!

This sample was such fun, and I can’t wait to work up more of them! I think it’s the activity going on in it. It just makes me want to keep stitching!

Coming and More!

I still have a lot of work to do on this alphabet and a couple more interpretations I want to play with before making it available.

I suppose I was just so excited about actually finishing a couple stitched samples, that I couldn’t resist showing you. I feel like I’ve actually accomplished something for a change!

Besides, it seemed like a good day to share something a bit heartsy and sweet.

If you want to know how heartsy and sweet I am when it comes to Valentine’s Day, you can read my own poetic masterpiece about Valentine’s Day here. You’ll also find a free hand embroidery pattern for a pretty little heart in the same article.

And if that doesn’t do you for Valentine’s patterns, you might enjoy this Heart o’ Flowers design. You’ll find a gorgeous stitched version of the same design here, worked in silk and goldwork.

Wishing you a cheery Monday all around!