Stitchscape Pebbles

Now these are cute, even if I do say so myself. How do you feel about Stitchscape Pebbles? Little tiny nuggets of stitch focusing entirely on my bullion knot flowers and French knot blossom sticks. It was an idea that kind of hit me very late one night when I was trying to go to sleep and the brain goes to strange 'shutting down' places. Does this happen to any of you? I have to keep a notepad by the side of my bed to write down some of these ideas sometimes as they turn into burning things that keep me awake until I do write it down and can then forget about it until the morning.

I can't quite remember what the original idea was. Broaches perhaps that were little and sweet? These could be used as broaches if a safety pin was stitched to the back, but I have kept them as they are. Totally pointless but rather pretty!
I can fit eight of these chaps in a 20cm (8") hoop (much easier to work in multiples, a little bit like the Stitchscape minis) and I draw out the shapes to use as a guide before starting. There was a bit of trial and error with some card cut-outs and a off-cut of calico, trying to figure out the best shape and way of making them, and I have some rejected initial attempts that were made of layers of quilt batting, card and heavy vilene. I eventually hit upon the method of toy stuffing to pad out the pebble, with a layer of card to keep the shape when the fabric was pulled up, the back is then neatened with a layer of felt that is also padded with toy stuffing to keep the roundness. It's a bit fiddly but well worth the effort.

My next thought is to take these slightly bigger as they currently stand about 4cm (1.5") tall so they are really diddy! It has been good at using up my scraps of fabrics though and there are some slightly strange combinations put together that I really like. Again this is so rough and ready! The backing fabric is just laid down (sometimes not even pressed out beforehand) and tacking stitches hold it round the edges. The stitches are then worked within the template space and when finished, the shapes are cut out on my template seam allowance line which leaves about 1cm to thread a running stitch through and gather the fabrics up.

I have also had a request for some sheep themed pebbles which is an interesting concept so I might try that- I've just started cutting into my chicken and swan themed fabrics so perhaps I should have a wool and feathers series of pebbles.

I stuck with a just a few well known stitches in these- you don't really need anything fancy. So, here we have; bullion knots (of course), French knots, pistil stitch, straight stitch and fly stitch. That's it!

They will eventually be for sale, and I'm looking into little organza bags to present them in, but I'm having problems trying to come up with a price for them because they are so tiny. They still take over an hour to make each!