Tuesday, October 19, 2010

sew much sewing!

today's card has lots and lots of machine stitching, both decorative (as an accent around the border) and practical (to hold the chipboard letters in place on top of lace trim); not to mention a bit of handstitching with embroidery floss (the fanciful butterfly trail):



people sometimes ask me if there is a trick to handstitching on cards and there isn't really, aside from the fact that you DEFINITELY need to make your holes beforehand. i use the good old heidi swapp petite paper piercer-- which is also the first thing i'd grab if a burglar broke in, that thing is SHARP!--and work on top of an old mouse mat to protect my tabletop. i usually draw very lightly in pencil where i think i'd like to stitch, and when i'm happy with the design i poke my holes (as evenly spaced as possible), erase the pencil marks, and then get sewing. on this card i've used all 6 strands of DMC embroidery floss, for maximum impact. i nearly always use backstitch (& did so here), but holbein stitch is completely BRILLIANT for situations in which the back of your work will also be visible; for example...working on a transparency, where the combination of old-fashioned stitching and ultra-modern acrylic are--in my opinion--rather awesome!

everything you see above (except the floss) came from october's pixie dust paperie kit, FALL IN LOVE! there are more photos on the pixie blog...including one of the piece of packaging (!!!) i used as part of my card's frame!

12 comments:

  1. OH LAUREN!!! This is GORGEOUS!!!
    The stitching is incredible and the green on that monochrome theme is brilliant!! LOVE love love ♥♥♥

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  2. Oooh, Pretty! :)
    And, btw, I *adore* the swirly trail that butterfly left... why do my swirly things just look like I was drunk? Oh, right. Nevermind.... :D

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  3. I might need to get one of those sharp thing, LOL! Like Mari said, my swirly sewing is never good!
    Love how you recycled the backing sheet too! now I need to go through my trash can and start digging out things that I MIGHT be able to use on my card!

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  4. **sigh** such a beauty....the handstitching really adds a ton to the card...it's so labor intensive for me and I'm so lazy....haha...

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  5. THis is gorgeous! I love, love, love the butterfly trail! Beautiful job!!

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  6. Wow Lauren, when will you stop impressing us all! It's beautiful, how do you come up with such great ideas?

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  7. Absolutely gorgeous!! Your stitching is incredible!

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  8. The butterfly trail is gorgeous and you were so smart to use the packaging!

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  9. wow. love that fancy butterfly trail. gorgeous card!

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  10. Rather awesome indeed! I love hand-stitching on layouts and cards. It just shows all the extra love and attention that goes into a handmade piece. :)

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  11. I could totally FALL IN LOVE with this card! The stitching is marvelous. ESPECIALLY OVER THE LETTERS!!! BRILLIANT. Did I tell you I purchased a sewing machine? I'll have to blog about it. I purchased it Tuesday night (last week). I took it out of the box and set it up Friday afternoon and played for ~20 minutes. I want to practice a bit more so I don't ruin a card with my crooked stitching. I think I will get the hang of it soon *I hope*, then I'll blog about it :)

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  12. sew pretty! I love it. All that stitching was some work! Love the card!

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