For the last couple of weeks work has been continuing at quite a pace on my Naked Stitchscape Kits. I have spoken about these before, but the premise is that rather than my sewing a stitchscape and writing down everything I did, drawing around my cut fabric pieces and counting every centimetre of thread used for you to replicate, these kits are more inspirational starter packs. They include most of the things that my other kits have; hoop, backing calico square, five pieces of co-ordinating fabrics, cut and labelled threads etc but rather than draw a picture in the printed suggestion guide, I have written and diagrammed my go-to stitches for 'scapes, and included a couple of pages on different ways of embroidering the different types of print pattern you might get. For example, how to turn a polka dot into a check or a stripe, or just to keep it as a spot fabric.
The guide has been written and printed for ages, but the fabrics were holding me back as they weren't anywhere near ready. Finally a couple of weeks ago, The Mother and I traveled to Brighton, to one of our favourite shops, and purchased lots of different colours and patterns of fabric to add to the stash that I have been quietly building. One stormy day last week where the cat was so depressed, all he wanted to do was lie despondently on the ironing board (a preferred place to sleep if available), I cut ALL of the fabrics into strips. It took a full day to neatly divide my metres of fabric into regimented rows of 2.5" but I eventually got there.
Once they were all cut I then started collating together five fabric patterns that inspired me, or looked lovely together, and asked The Mother to choose some selections as well. These strips were then cut into 20cm lengths and laid out to look pretty.
My calico squares were cut and pressed, and my Anchor threads laid out against the different packs for five colours per kit to be chosen. There is a quarter of a skein of each colour, which roughly translates as 2 metres, so in total, the kits include roughly 10 metres of thread.
A length of ribbon/cord/braiding was added to compliment the fabrics, and the final part was finished on Wednesday as each kit now also has a small selection of mixed beads. I had a lovely afternoon in the sunshine putting the final flourishes to the kits, adding in the 12cm hoop and sealing up the packets! There is a real feeling of satisfaction when you rip off the little bit of plastic on the self seal bottom and see everything laid out so prettily in its casing.
In total I have currently made 47 Naked Stitchscape kits, and in some cases there are up to five of each colour way. Some are total one offs and others will be slightly different if I had to put in a different type of fabric as a variance. I am not planning to necessarily repeat combinations and will try to really mix things up a bit to make sure that the kits are as unique as possible.
Lots of the kits are now in my Etsy shop and I have given some of the colour options names to make it easier to let me know which one you have fallen in love with and been inspired by. I really hope that you will be inspired to have a go yourself. During my various craft shows, I get lots of comments about the stitchscapes which revolve around 'oh I could do that if I wanted to', 'I would like to have a go but wouldn't know where to start and don't want to follow a kit', or, 'my mother used to do this sort of thing but perhaps it isn't really me'. All comments get taken on board, and this is my solution to those comments. It's a kit with a difference, the naked components just waiting for you to make them into something beautiful!
No comments:
Post a Comment