What is Your Stitch Story?
Jul 20th 2021
In her new book, Playful Free-Form Embroidery, best-selling author Laura Wasilowski encourages you to let your imagination run wild as you tell your own stitch story.
Laura’s imagination brings you a bird dancing on a pincushion, a set of brightly colored teacups, a cute little acorn house with swing, houses twirling around a loaded paintbrush, and more. But Laura also teaches her process for taking an idea—such as a personal story, a phrase, or even an idiom—from concept to sketch to final pattern so that you can use your ideas in a design unique to you.
Like the designs in her Joyful Stitching, Laura’s new projects start with simple felt or felted wool appliqué (full-size patterns included). From there, you can follow her step-by-step instructions for adding the whimsical embroidered elements shown in the sample projects, or you can use the designs as a springboard to finishing in your own style.
On Pins and Needles
On Pins and Needles wing, one step at a time
For more inspiration, the Gallery is loaded with extra designs and embroidery tips.
Return to Birdland, a lesson in color repetition
Bloom #1, improv test swatch
These little projects are the perfect take-along. No special tools needed, just felt or felted wool, perle cotton #12 and #8 threads, embroidery needles, and hand-sewing equipment, all often found in your local quilt shop and easily portable.
Nut House
And there are no complicated stitches to learn since all of the designs feature familiar stitches like the blanket stitch, French knot, lazy daisy, and straight stitch (all illustrated in the book). Laura shows you how to combine these basic stitches in new and interesting ways.
Is it time to get started on your stitch story?
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