Remember way back when and the world’s ugliest tea pot – I never finished my tea cozy embroidery project (I see you all rolling your eyes and thinking ‘when has she EVER finished something…’) because I made a poor choice in my fabric selection. I was thinking I needed a loose weave so the embroidery part would be easier. But it was too loose and not stable enough to effectively embroider.
Plus, let’s face it, my embroidery skills were are very rusty and the stitches are very wobbly. I also made a tactical error in thinking I wanted all yellow stitches on a white background which gets really boring. Fast.
So I decided to start over – still planning on the end result being a tea cozy for the poor, maligned tea pot.
New design, new colors. New fabric. I found the design on www.needlecrafter.com. Seriously – a treasure trove of designs. For free! I bought a transfer pencil and painstakingly drew over the design. I set my iron to the highest temperature and pressed away on my newly purchase embroidery linen.
And nothing. It didn’t transfer at ALL. Okay. So I got an old white napkin and tried again but it’s too faint. So I’ll try retracing and trying again. Embroidery should not be this hard.
I will persevere though – the colors are too pretty not to.
Oh Dear. I have no idea what to suggest… I’ll bet some of your crafty readers are bound to have a solution for you!! Love the little birdies and their round little heads.
What beautiful thread colors you have pictured! I have always thought you were a prime candidate to take up redwork. (Trust me to get the subject onto quilting!) You should check into some of the cute quilt block designs that are available now. Start with a cute tea cozy, and all kinds of new projects will present themselves!
Love that bird pattern. I just emailed you with a question.
You need a Sulky brand iron-on transfer pen. They have them at joann.com I’m not sure if the stores have them. They work wonderfully. I can’t get the darn pencils to work either.
this pen:
http://www.joann.com/joann/catalog.jsp?CATID=cat3423&PRODID=prd3117&source=search
is my absolute favorite though. I must have 8 and I use them daily.
If you can see through your linen to trace or have or can fashion a light box I’d go with one of those.
I use the blue side of the pen, which erases with water, to trace my pictures. Then, if I stitch off the lines at all, it’s all ok because when I’m finished I rinse away all the blue lines.
Also, I’m assuming your tea cozy will have batting inside? If so, I’d recommend adding a layer of thin (I use cotton) quilt batting behind your embroidery fabric before stitching. Yes, just put them in the hoop together. That way your threads won’t show through the linen where you jump from one flower to the next. It also does *wonders* for keeping a nice, even tension.
Best wishes! I can’t wait to see the finished cozy!
By the way, I have a little embroidery tutorial on my blog too. It has lots of pictures and shows all the things I just talked about. 🙂
“(I see you all rolling your eyes and thinking ‘when has she EVER finished something…’)”
I love you for saying this! I am a great starter and non finisher and it irritates me so. It’s quite lovely to see someone else *admit* to the same trait. :-)))
Mari-Nanci