embroidery with wild olive

a few months ago, i participated in "embroidery: re-sized", an online class taught by Mollie of wild olive. if you're not familiar with Mollie's great embroidery patterns and fantastic resources, you should acquaint yourself with them immediately after you finish reading this post!!

now, i didn't quite keep up with all of the projects over the four week class, and some of them i changed a little bit to better suit my style or to combine the skills of two projects into one, but just the fact that there were already thought out projects and fun embroidery patterns to stitch up got me to try some new things and also expand my embroidery skills a bit. plus, i made some pretty darned cute stuff!!

first up were some teeny tiny notions embroidered on linen and made into patchwork coasters. i'll admit i'm a bit partial to the pincushion ;) i used essex linen for the embroidery and dug into my stash of echino for the patchwork squares. the coasters were hand stitched around the edges with perle cotton.

next up... teeny tiny nature magnets. i stitched these teeny patterns on quilting cotton (from Joel Dewberry's Aviary 2 collection) and then used the i-top button maker to turn them into fridge magnets. for more teeny tiny embroidery patterns, you can check out the appropriately named "teeny tiny" section of the wild olive etsy shop.

this project was not an official part of the class, but i scaled down and stitched up some of Mollie's other patterns onto t-shirts for birthday gifts. the images are from her SeaSiders, Doodles and Dreams, and Little Owls pattern sets. in order to stabilize the knit material, i used Pellon 553R Sol-U-Film Lite™, which washes away completely with water to leave the t-shirt pliable and soft.

we also stitched some itty bitty letters, which i think is a great skill to have. i made my letters into this itty bitty banner for sewn studio. the fabric i used is handprinted cotton from Maze & Vale.

the last class-related project i've made (so far) is this oversized embroidery hoop for the parade of oversized notions at sewn studio. the scissors and thread come from Mollie's Crafty Characters pattern set. i cut the pattern shapes out of felt, hand sewed them onto the fabric, embellished the designs with perle cotton, and added some oversized buttons.

and there you have it! my fun with very small and very large embroidery. i highly recommend trying out your embroidery (or other crafts) on a different scale. it is interesting how just changing the size of something requires looking at it in a different way. plus, teeny tiny embroidery is a great way to get in a little crafting when your time is small as well!

happy stitching :)