Free-Stylin'

The latest addition to the nursery involved some free-hand embroidery. Once again, I was inspired by something I saw on Pinterest and thought I'd give it a try.

I bought a quarter yard of yellow linen fabric, navy blue and gray embroidery floss, and one piece of gray felt. The grand total at the fabric store was $4.93, since I had to purchase the needles as well.

This was my first try at embroidering something and I went into it with the attitude of "how hard could this be?" I also was realistic and thought that if it turned out terrible, then I'm only out a few bucks. It didn't have to turn out as a masterpiece. The main occupant of the room won't be able to read for a few years, so I wasn't too worried about it. Luckily, it turned out really sweet.

I started by securing the yellow linen fabric in an embroidery hoop that I already had, and then put a piece of painters tape across it so I had a nice straight line.

After fighting to thread the needle for a few minutes, I was finally able to start the embroidering. I used small stitches and just free-handed the words "little one." The whole thing took about 45 minutes. There was a little bit of a learning curve, but it went pretty quickly once I got into the swing of things.

I think baby elephants are adorable, so I went to the silhouette with my gray felt and had the machine cut out a baby elephant. Even on the highest setting with my fabric blade, it didn't completely cut through the felt. This was easily resolved with a pair of scissors and resulted in a far cuter elephant than I ever could have drawn!

I put a few quick stitches in for the eye to secure it into place using the navy blue thread, then switched over to the gray thread to stitch around the entire elephant. This took almost an entire episode of Love it or List it, but again, the results were worth the time!

After a little debating, I decided to frame this up. I debated keeping it free so that we could feel the softness of the elephant, but decided that a frame would protect it better. Since I have the ability to replicate the elephant on the silhouette anytime, I can also put one on a pillow or blanket at some point.

The art collection for the nursery is growing. I'm up to 3 big pieces now, including the LOVE fabric scrap one that I made last week. The third is a photo that I found at Target that really incorporates the colors of the nursery. I love stumbling across the perfect things unexpectedly :)

This is the first really "baby-ish" thing that I've made for the nursery. My goal is to keep it modern and sophisticated, but still child-friendly. So far, I think I'm achieving this. I'm just not a big fan of nurseries that are so focused on the baby that they can't evolve as the baby grows.

What did you accomplish this weekend? Anything exciting? We finally had nice weather - 50 degrees and sunny! - so we got out and walked the dog. It was nice to get some fresh air in the house as well!

Thanks for reading,
Kathleen

I linked up at:




http://thededicatedhouse.blogspot.com/2013/03/make-it-pretty-monday-week-40.html