Embroidering again!

Hey folks, hope you've had or are still enjoying a blessed and peaceful Christmas period with your loved ones. We've been catching up with family, eating roughly our own weight in cheese and marvelling at the unseasonable sunshine (no snow to be seen in the South West as yet!) 

But just before Christmas I excitedly attended the beautiful wedding of a dear friend. And of course a wedding means Becca gets crafty. Only this time the needle I reached for wasn't a knitting needle, oh no. I stretched some polka dots over a hoop and set about stitching a sweet monogram embroidery hoop for the happy couple. 

Since finishing my textiles degree two years ago (crikey, that long ago already?), I hadn't so much as threaded a needle. I'm definitely more of a yarn gal these days, but making this hoop reminded me how much I love hand embroidery. I like the slow, stitch by stitch pace and how it really is just like drawing. My precious pal Letty is a dab hand at these sort of things and recommended that I draw out my design onto tissue paper, trap it in the hoop over the fabric and stitch through it. Let me tell you, it worked a treat. I was able to place the design exactly where I wanted it and avoided the inaccuracy and pitfalls of trying to draw directly on the fabric (I'm so not ready for that). Plus, I could tear away the tissue paper with a triumphant flourish at the end, like removing a dome from a silver platter. 

The final hoop is a lot simpler than the initial design I had in my head, but a cute heart-shaped button and a scalloped crochet edge (took absolutely ages but was totally worth it) made it pretty enough. I was glad I had made something special for a special day. I think I'll be embroidering again soon.