4 Seasons of Embroidery Gifts!

Is it better to give or to receive? For us crafters the answer is neither; the real joy comes in the creating! Embroidery is one of the most satisfying ways to share this joy. The mesmerizing rhythm of stitching both soothes and stirs as a once-empty cloth becomes a beautiful field of texture. Best of all, embroidery projects make wonderful gifts because they are truly one-of-a-kind heirloom treasures!

This year we plan to use our new 4 Seasons of Embroidery Packet as a starting point for all kinds of unique gifts, starting with this monogrammed 40 Minute Tote! Our master embroiderer, Erin, used our woodgrain alphabet transfers to stitch this lovely monogram on a cool gray linen-cotton background. The silvery tones of the delicate embroidery transform this simple tote into an elegant carry-all with a personal touch!

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New! 4 Seasons of Embroidery from Purl Soho + Egg Press

We are so excited to announce our latest labor of love, the 4 Seasons of Embroidery Kit from Purl Soho and Egg Press! To create it we combined a little bit of life's most meaningful pleasures: old friends, natural beauty, and hand crafting. The result is the embroidery kit of our dreams!

The 4 Seasons of Embroidery project started as a friendship between Purl Soho and Portland, Oregon-based design company, Egg Press. We have long admired each other, sharing a devotion to traditional crafting and modern design and an agreement that nature's gifts are our finest inspiration! Egg Press also brought to this project a mastery of the time-honored crafts of letter pressing and typeface design.

But it is our mutual respect for the handmade that most urgently brought this bi-coastal partnership into being. And embroidery, with its stark evidence of the hand's involvement, was a natural place for us to start. We love also that embroidery has the inherent feeling of having lived a hundred years already, whether it was in fact passed on from generation to generation or was just finished yesterday. We took great pleasure in bringing to this timeless feeling the aesthetics of modern design, a look that is pared-down, playful and very fresh!

The 4 Seasons of Embroidery centers around one of nature's most compelling images, the tree. Its powerful message of life and renewal, of family history and natural bounty, is so universal that people of all ages and places can appreciate its dispatch of hope!

Each kit includes four transfer designs that depict a year in the life of a proud tree, from bubbly spring and verdant summer to resplendent autumn and serene winter.

To magnify that message, we also created a simple woodgrain design. We love the raw, organic look of the woodgrain but designed it to give a modern, graphic expression to your more abstract thoughts!

Woodgrain proved to be a wonderful vehicle for our letter and number designs. With two transfer sets of alphabets (lower and upper cases) and a set of zero-to-nine numbers, each kit comes equipped with an amazing way to personalize your projects with initials, wedding or birth dates and messages of love!

Each 4 Seasons of Embroidery Kit comes with absolutely everything you'll need to stitch up your own embroidered treasures:

• Reusable transfers for 4 Seasonal Trees, woodgrain alphabets and number, and woodgrain pattern
• 1/2 yard cotton/linen fabric
• 15 skeins of colorful embroidery thread
• Embroidery needles
• A 4-inch wooden embroidery hoop (large display hoop not included)
• A color photo how-to-embroider booklet
• Hook and loop tape for plying thread

And because we love beautiful packaging and hate senseless garbage, all of this is contained in a sturdy tube with a lovely letter-pressed top created by Egg Press. Once you've used what's inside, use the tube for paint brushes or wooden spoons, buttons or knick knacks, dried flowers or chopsticks! Plus, such considered packaging makes this kit a very special gift!

Already equipped? Choose instead, a 4 Seasons of Embroidery Packet, which includes:

• Reusable transfers for 4 Seasonal Trees, woodgrain alphabets and number, and woodgrain pattern
• And a color photo how-to-embroider booklet

For stunning pillows, wall art and linens, the 4 Seasons of Embroidery Kit is our idea of crafting bliss! To get started on your own heirloom projects, please click here for the 4 Seasons of Embroidery Kit and here for the Packet. And happy stitching!

New Felted Christmas Trees!

Last year Whitney created a wonderful heirloom Felted Christmas Tree pattern that I've had my eye on for this Christmas.  As you no doubt have noticed if you are a regular follower of The Purl Bee, we just can't get enough of pink, red and white at Christmas so I thought it would be fun to revisit Whitney's pattern in our favorite holiday color palette (plus it just so happens that this color palette looks great in my own house!).

Last year's felted trees were knit with Cascade 220, a great basic yarn that is wonderful for felting.  This year's felted trees were knit with Manos Del Uruguay Handspun in Natural, one of my all time favorite yarns,  (two skeins made one large tree and one small tree) and it worked beautifully for this project. 

Please note, for this year's trees, I felted them BEFORE decorating them.  Once they're felted the tall tree is approximately 11-inches tall, the small tree is approximately 6-inches tall.  

I decorated the trees with Koigu KPM in hot pink, color #1150, and bright red, color #2229 (one skein each is enough to decorate about 12 trees).  I love the way the two colors work together, glowing like real ornaments on a tree.

The embroidery stitches I used to decorate the trees are very, very simple.  The challenge of the embroidery is finding a needle that is sharp enough to get through the felted wool, but big enough to accommodate the yarn.  I found several that did the job in this collection of needles.  A thimble for pushing the needle through the felted wool was also a big help.

To decorate the little tree I made little plus marks (in the neighborhood of 1/4-inch wide and 1/4-inch tall) in bright red all over the tree, then went back over a few of the larger plus signs with hot pink.  

On the big tree I first made big plus signs (around 1/2-inch wide x 1/2-inch tall) all over the tree and then went over those again in the center with a diagonal plus sign, both in hot pink.  Then I went over the diagonal plus signs again with bright red.  To finish the large tree I made small plus signs (about 1/4-inch wide by 1/4-inch tall) in hot pink all over between the large motifs.

I did the motifs on both trees totally freehand and without any attempt at uniformity which gives the design a lively quality that I am really fond of. Also, there is no need to cut the yarn between shapes (just bring the needle back out wherever you want the next motif to be) so the decorating goes very quickly.

If you need help with these stitches, please visit Molly's Asterisk Embroidery Tutorial right here which explains the technique for the motifs step by step.

I was so delighted with the way these trees turned out.  They have a sweet simplicity and happy quality that makes me smile every time I look at them.  They make great gifts too!

If you'd like to make them you can find all you need right here:

• Felted Tree Pattern - Free!
• Manos Del Uruguay Handspun yarn for the trees (2 skeins make two trees - 1 large, 1 small)
• Koigu KPM for decorating (one skein each in two colors, I used colors 1150 and 2229)
• Sharp, large embroidery needle (this set includes several that will work)
• Thimble
• Stuffing

Merry Christmas!  --Joelle

Molly's Sketchbook: Sashiko Mini Tote (or Apron) Kit

Sashiko is a Japanese embroidery technique that is simple to learn and beautiful to look at. Even though it's a craft that's been around for a very long time, the traditional designs are very clean and graphic, and I love how modern they seem.  Sashiko combines the quick, hands-on creativity of embroidery with a calming, meditative quality as well. I learned about Sashiko and how to do it last year by reading Mari's helpful Sashiko Tutorial on The Purl Bee and I've been wanting to do more ever since! 

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Colorful Crafting with Jen: Rickie's Sashiko Pillow

I had Rickie's pillow at my house for a good two months before this photo was taken.  I gave her many reasons for the delay, my camera battery was dead, I didn't get home in time to catch the good light, I needed to change my bedding, it was raining...the list goes on and on. The truth is, every time I looked at the pillow it made me smile, I didn't want to give it back!   

To create this charming pillow Rickie started with our Olympus Sashiko Sampler, White Hana-Zashi, but when it came to choosing thread she decided to forgo tradition (which would call for navy blue) and instead used 6 cheerful and vibrant colors.  She framed the finished stitching in a pillowcase of Tencel Linen from Robert Kauffman and closed it up with a 12-inch, Turquoise non-separating nylon zipper.

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