My friend, Christen Brown, gave me a challenge recently. She sent me a set of her latest embroidery stencils from the Darling Motif Collection and asked to give them a test drive. Challenge accepted!
I’ve never used embroidery stencils before. My usual method of creating hand embroidery designs is to improvise without marking the fabric. But these stencils are so sweet! It wasn’t difficult to come up with a design and mark a piece of my hand-dyed silk fabric using a fine chalk pencil.
This scene from my garden depicts actual events. Our bird friend is thinking, “How am I going to ever fit into that tiny door on the birdhouse?”
After tracing the stencil shapes. The silk fabric is fused to a wool batting using Misty Fuse, a lightweight fusible web.
The hand embroidery follows the stencil lines. I’m using my hand-dyed size 12 pearl cotton threads in a variety of colorways. To outline the shapes, I used chain stitches and stem stitches. The handy French knot makes dots.
Should I stop here? I think not! More stitching to come.