April Farmyard Friends Swap Cards

Hehe, these guys are so cute! There were lots of cheeky faces plopping through the letterbox in April (yes, I know I'm behind and writing this up in July!). That super pink pig snout in particular is very sweet. 

The theme, as if you didn't know it already, was Farmyard Friends and I think we've covered quite a few different varieties of farmyard animal; sheep, chickens, cows, pigs, sheepdogs...there's even a beehive!

There's a really varied range of styles and methods here again too. One of the most striking is that floofy chicken on the top right. She was stitched up by Sam and, we have checked, she used turkey work to stitch the feathers (as a two-for-one on the farmyard theme!) which has worked brilliantly well. 

There are a couple of cards with elements of cross stitch on and lots of appliqued or layered fabrics, plus a pig with a button nose. 

There's so much detail in the farmyard card above. The beehive with the little bead bees, the hay trolley with hay spilling everywhere, flowers growing up the tweed farmhouse, sheep in the pasture and a blossom tree with blossom blowing away in the breeze. It's absolutely fantastic how it's all been fitted in, so delicate!

This cow looks like a perfect match for his little pink pig friend, both seem to have had their layers stitched on the sewing machine with little details hand embroidered on. I love his fluffy fringe!

Sabine has also opted for cows but had the best fabrics in her stash for the job, the brilliant stone wall print and the cows in the the field print! She's outlined the stones to give them some definition, and then layered the cows over the top of another green fabric, blending the two together with straight and pistil stitches by the looks of things. 

I love the use of the frayed fabric edge here to look like a bed of hay - especially when combined with lots of crossing straight stitches. And the edge of the pig sty just being stitched semi-circles with extra woven threads criss-crossing between the rows is really clever. It makes it look like another fabric cut out. 

This chicken is really interesting with the cross stitch chicken but then couched purl wire and extra straight stitches to create her nest, and detached chain stitch (lazy daisy) flowers underneath. Seems like several styles all coming together to create this card. And it's so beautifully edged too!

What a brilliant collection! Well done to everyone who made a card and sent it in for the swap. 

Farmyard Friends ATCs

April's Stitchscape Swap theme was Farmyard Friends and I really struggled with this one for some reason. I had initially wanted to make something featuring cows, but couldn't find my chicken or cow fabrics (I've since found them - typical!) so settled on sheep instead, although I feel like I always do things with these sheep and they appear all of the time. 

To make them a little bit different I've gone for different colours (usually they get stitched just in white)! More natural coloured sheep in browns and light greys - the next step might be to do those multicoloured spotty sheep and mix up colours in one sheep rather than giving them a solid coloured fleece. 

I've chosen fabrics which reminded me of hay bales or wheatfields with ploughed elements, without trying to make it seem so obvious. The top layer is just a linen texture green fabric and I've added a couple of rows of running stitch for some interest there, the next layer down is an alternately striped and kind of floral spot print which I've gone over with back stitch on the stripes (changing it up to use different thicknesses, either one or two strands) and I've added sets of three french knots in the flowers which remind me a lot of haybales left in an orderly fashion on a newly harvested field. 

That fabric has been edged with a slim waxed cotton cord, and the layer beneath it edged with a fun mini looped trimming which fitted in nicely. The fabric has that cross-hatched pattern on it already, with the blank circles so I've copied that exactly with long straight stitches, weaving the stitches in and out as I worked round so that they sort of hold themselves in place (rather than only working one way and then the other which would keep one direction on top all of the time). Again the shape of the circles is reminiscent of hay bales, and the lines of ploughed fields. All very subtle!

It gets less subtle from then on though, the sheep are sheep (french knots and straight stitches) with a french knot edge like a little hedge. The flowers are cup sequins or star stitches with french knot centres and I've popped a blanket stitch along the edge to be a bit fence-like. 

They aren't my favourite cards but I hope that the subtleties help make it look well thought out and not stitched in a slightly disgruntled rush after not being able to find the fabrics I wanted. The sequins, I seem to recall, were added because the card didn't have much oomph to it - perhaps because I'm so used to the sheep? They do look nice though and bring the colour yellow through to the bottom of the card if you are thinking about colour balancing. 

The stitch run down for these cards is; running stitch, couching, back stitch, french knots, straight stitch, seed stitch, star stitch and blanket stitch. 

March Pond Life Stitchscape Swap

This swap theme is gorgeous, there are no two ways about it. Each month I am just astounded by the creativity of these ladies and the way they have taken a vague idea and turned it into a beautiful scene or image or motif which each have their own little stories, are beautiful with their colours choices, have the most amazing sense of scale and perspective and are just wonderful. 

The theme is Pond Life so it could literally be anything to do with a pond; above it, around it, below it, growing in it, living in it, reflecting off it....anything. 

Sometimes a theme just inspires a person straight away and other times it can take a while for an inkling of an idea to grow. I think I mentioned in my post about my own cards for this swap that I wasn't fantastically inspired to start with, but I suspect that some of these ladies knew exactly what they were going to do with the theme. 

I love the attention to detail with these ducks, the long stems for the water lily and the little water boatmen! It's such an interesting perspective choice as well, to cut through the water with a side view so that you see both into and above the pond. Works fantastically well, and what a brilliant choice of fabric for the water itself with the murky little spots which look like that may not be the duck's first dive down and they may have dislodged a few bits of mud now floating around. 

And Jackie's koi pond quite literally took my breath away! What fantastic and neat stitching for those fish! They are stunning! The water fabric I recognise as she purchased that from me (and you can find it in my Stitchscape shop if you would like some - quick and shameless plug there) but the colours are so bright and happy. Beautiful water lily flowers with three detached chain stitches forming each petal, and the edges with the choice of stitching to look like brickwork just sums up Jackie's careful and beautifully executed work to a tee. (Is it tee, or T?)

To me, these flowers look like water Irises? Anyone else? The mix of machine stitch and hand stitch is really lovely to build up texture, and that bright splash of blue really pops in the darker browns of the surrounding ground. 

Hehe, I love this one with the little ribbeting frogs. I don't think we have frogs anywhere else so it's nice to have them represented. Sarah's bullrushes are fab, made from french knots on long stems - and I love her raised sun as well, really effective. 

Jacquie's card, I think I have mentioned before, is instantly recognisable as hers because of the neat machine stitching around the edge, and also the use of embossed paper motifs which I wonder if she cuts herself on a Cricut machine or similar? I'm not entirely sure which angle we are looking at as it could be taken almost as a side on with the rocks and stems at the bottom of the pond, or a bird's-eye view looking down onto the waterlilies. 

Sam has used the same fabric as me! How funny that we should both have the same fish fabric, although it has only recently come onto the market and does fit perfectly in with the theme so perhaps it isn't all that odd. She has added lots of texture and colour with different yarns around her fish, with those fantastic bullrushes as well. And do you see her bullion knot and organza-winged dragonfly at the top there? Lovely stuff!

This card is so simple, yet so effective, and with brilliant blanket stitch lily pads. It's nice that there are two colours of green used rather than them all being exactly the same, it kind of picks out that pad on the right hand side there. 

Elle's card (below) quite literally shimmered. The gold/green velvet is really lush and then there is a shimmer to the (quite frankly) inspired sequin and bead frogspawn/or fish eggs at the top, and the beaded pond floor at the bottom. The fish are really effective too, as is the snail shell nestled into the gravel at the bottom.

If I could have kept all of these cards I would have! But it is only fair to swap them out to everyone who has sent one in, my spreadsheet demands it anyway. Which one would you have hoped to keep?

Pond Life ATCs

I struggled a little bit with my Pond Life ATCs, just couldn’t think what I wanted to do for them or how would be best to translate the theme. Having just finished the Kasumi Kit you would have thought the inspiration would have struck earlier but it took a while to remember that I actually had fish fabric, which would be the perfect thing! 

I had my little helper come and make sure that the finished cards were up to scratch of course, he checked them over very thoroughly and counted the fish for me to ensure none had escaped. He really is getting very helpful. 

The scale of the fish only allowed one koi per card which does make them look a little bit lonely I suppose but it left me lots of room for fun textures. As well as the four fabric prints, I laid over sections of cotton scrim which matched perfectly in terms of colour. It helped to give a more pondweed/mossy look without having to actually stitch it, although I then added picot stitches on the edge of the scrim, mostly where it overlaps the water to look like ferns or similar. It did definitely remind me why I don’t often do picot stitches, they are such a faff and get tangled up in each other and the scrim edges…some bits are distinctly fluffy where the scrim ends have got woven in as well but I’m using that as part of the wild untamed look and just going along with it. 

The view of them is a birds eye one so they can be looked at either way up. The fabric with the curvy print has been stitched on one side of each printed curved stripe line with stem stitch, using a really thin Perlé thread that has a slightly different texture to the stranded cottons. I did experiment with stitching on both sides of the curve pattern but it was too much and didn’t allow for breathing space so I’ve just shadowed one edge. 

There is a really lovely rosebud ric rac trimming on the raw edge next to this (bought from the-stitchery in Lewes), apart from on one of the cards where I have accidentally stitched it to a different edge, can you spot it?

I actually stitched all of my texture layers first, with the fish layer being the last to be stitched. The mosaic looking print just has a single back stitch around each shape to lift those blocks and add a texture, and the blue droplets have been satin stitched following the direction of the droplet shape. One of the fabric edges is made up of a row of bullion knots, and the other edge is twisted Starmist metallic crochet yarn and DMC Eco Vita thread which has a slight woolliness to it. 

Anytime I had any leftover ends of green thread for any part of the stitching I added French knots to the main section of scrim to break it up, although at the end I did go back with the Eco Vita thread and put more on as well. 

The fish were stitched in the same way I’d done on my Kasumi Koi kit Stitchscape - satin stitch on the patches of colour down the fish and a single strand whipped back stitch around the outline of the fish with a one strand, one twist French knot for each eye. 

The lily pads have been blanket stitched, following the direction of the lines within the print, and the water lily flowers have been detached chain stitch, picking up on where there are shaded areas in the print and using two different shades of white for the petals. I’ve also worked some simple rounds of running stitch around the pads and edges in the water to give a slight ripple or running water effect. 

I think the picot stitches, where they overlap and cast shadows over the water fabric have really helped to give these cards a three dimensional appearance. It would have perhaps been nice to do more, or to mingle in some drizzle stitches, or other more 3D stitches but the cards do need to be flat enough to post as a normal letter so they are restricted in height. 

The total stitch run down for these cards is; stem stitch, couching, blanket stitch, whipped back stitch, French knots, bullion knots, picot stitch, satin stitch, back stitch, running stitch and detached chain stitch.