Sunday

More pictures. My plan today was to do some 'real' sewing while the The Toy did its thing. But I got sidetracked by this and that. I actually spent most of the day on the net looking for miniature rugs done with machine embroidery. I found some for sale, and very nice they were too, but I want to make them myself.

Eventually, I found some patterns I could work together into a rug. Not entirely what I wanted, but for the moment good enough. (Why did I want a rug anyway, you ask? We're supposed to take a small Secret Santa to The Girl's miniature's club Christmas dinner. I don't do miniatures, too fiddley, too much time for small results (hahaha); but I thought I'd see what I could produce on The Toy.)

(Cradle by The Girl).

I've only been able to do these things with the help of Embird. The centre roses had to be shrunk to 25% to fit the centre of the frame, which I think I shrunk to 50%. Most of what I've done has been 'tampered' with some how in Embird. I've shrunk things, joined things, changed colours, deleted bits I didn't want, tested layout options. It's really been invaluable.

Two that I forgot to take of photos of the other day. My stripy frog:
I used a variegated thread and it didn't work quite how I imagined. The thread changes colours too abruptly. I think, even if the cheaper threads work out okay for plain colours, it's probably worth the extra expense for variegateds, just to get a more subtle colour shift.
Hmmmm. Not entirely happy with the Maltese. There's a lot of long loose threads. While it gives it nice shading and texture, it's makes it 'dangerous' embroidery for anything other than probably a frame. But, hey, it's all a learning process. And until I've learnt, my family will just have to wear the product of my trials :-)

These are the two I couldn't take photos of last night.
My shirt. Again, using a variegated thread. It's okay. I wanted something subtle; but if I was to do it again, I'd use a plain grey/silver.

My angel. You can't see it in the photo, but she's still a little 'disconnected' in places. Another trip to Spotlight this week I think :-)