Not much time to spend on internet right now

 

This is my cat, Jingles and he's the reason I'm both too tired to spend much time online and do any sewing. The sweet boy has a bladder infection and almost died last week. So far he's doing well but now that we've done some research on the illness it's a 50-50 chance whether it won't come back. We're almost up to $3,000. Easy to see why pet health insurance is becoming more popular.

Love your furry babies because you never know what may happen. After losing Kaley in 2020 and Dillon last year, I'm just not ready for another pet death or people for that matter. Too many family and friends passed in the past 2 years, too.

BTW, the DH went and bought a puppy without telling me. Not a surprise I wanted. He's planning on getting him this weekend but that will depend on getting into Canada. He can't get a real answer to whether or not he needs a passport. He filled everything out for one but it won't be here in time.

The free embroidery for April

 

Yay!!! I'm finally on schedule so this is April's embroidery. I really like how I used ribbon on this embroidery but you can always switch it out for other trims or even embroidery stitches.

Something I didn't include in the first free embroidery was that I'm using a white leaf pattern on white cotton fabric. I found that it's not the easiest fabric to trace a pattern on. I talk more about it on last month's freebie post.

Here are the directions for April's freebie. 

1. Cut a square of your background fabric 4 1/4" x 4 1/4". If you aren't adding borders like I did you should cut the fabric larger so it will fit in your embroidery hoop.

2. Using a permanent fine tip marker like a Micron Pigma pen, trace the design.

3. Baste pieces of ribbon to the fabric following pattern for placement. I used 1/4" and 1/8 inch wide ribbon. I do the embroidery later.

4. Add the borders following the directions in the freebie posted in February.

5. Starting with the ribbon make the cross stitches with all 6 strands of floss (I used DMC 597).

-I'm going to use beads where you see the tiny dots. They will be added after sewing the quilt together. You can use french knots instead.

6. Next do the centers of the flowers. Stem stitch around the oval lines using 3 strands of floss (I used DMC 725).

- In the center of the oval make 3 small cross stitches, side-by-side using the same floss. You can substitute french knots or beads.

7. The petals are back stitched with 3 strands of floss (I used DMC 601).

- The lines are along straight stitch using 3 strands of floss (I used DMC 603).

8. The stems are couched with 6 strands of floss )I used DMC 704) for the base and 3 for the couching. Couch at each spot where you will be adding leaves. At the bottom where there are no leaves continue spacing the couching as if you were still making them.

- The leaves are made with lazy daisy stitches using the same thread. Follow the pattern and your couching places for where to make them.

9. Next I did the grass. I used 3 strands of floss to do straight stitches (I used DMC 703). Make as much grass as you want. For this embroidery I used short straight stitches but last month I made the grass going up. You can always substitute them.

Note: All the dots can be beads or french knots. I didn't do them yet since I plan on adding beads. I'll also be adding beads and french knots on the ribbon.

Right click the pattern to save it to your hard drive. You'll need to print a pattern for tracing.

 

©Billie Jo Heisler 2022

All rights reserved

 Disclaimer:

I drew this design by hand then used a software program to edit it.

Please consider the drawing copyrighted. You have my permission to print copies of the drawing in any size for your own use but not to share or sell. If you want to share the pattern please link to the blog pages.

The embroidery design is my own. I have not knowingly copied anyone else's work.