March's Free embroidery

 

Here's the freebie for March and I'm not all that late getting it up. Yay for me! This looks kinda tropical to me with the leaves on the roof and large flowers. There are 2 patterns for this one to print. One is for those who will be appliqueing the house and the other has the flowers and leaves.

 Here are the directions:

1. Cut a square of your background fabric 5" x 5". This will be cut smaller later but this fits my fav 4" hoop. You can cut the fabric so it will fit in the embroidery hoop you like but make sure the birdhouse has enough room for the embroidery.

2. This step in optional but I like the stability. Now I add a square of Pelon Shape Flex interfacing. This is my favorite to use for all my embroidery designs because it's not stiff and it's easy to embroider thru. I cut the square of it slightly smaller the the entire piece. You can just add it to the center square if you prefer.

Most important!!  If you went ahead and traced the birdhouse do not use steam this can smear your tracing. I've used Pigma pens and had them smear slightly.

Note: I never use steam to apply the interfacing and it sticks fine.

3. Using a permanent marker like a Pigma pen or a Pilot Frixon pen, trace the design. Use you own judgment for placement of the flowers. Follow the pic or draw them where you want them.

Note that the Frixon pen will disappear when heat is applied. This is great if you made a mistake, just iron the fabric and start again.

4. The house can be appliqued like I did or just stitched with your favorite embroidery stitch.

-Trace the house on Heat n Bond by Therm-o-web. This is a product that makes appliqueing small pieces so much easier. TIP: Hold the iron on for just a few seconds or you will also melt the other side.

-Once it cools peel off the paper.

-Lay the fabric over the tracings and iron in place.

5.Do a small blanket stitch with 1 strand of floss ( I used DMC white) around the entire house.

6. The opening is filled in with straight stitches using 3 strands of floss.

-Then use 2 strands to go around the circle with stem stitch.

-Use 3 strands to make a 3 wrap french knot. 

- the circle  is 3 strands using stem stitch (I used DMC 310 for all 3 stitches).

7. The roof is made with fly stitch leaves. Use 3 strands of floss ( I used DMC 16). Start with the center leaf, then do the 2 outside one, and finally the last 2 leaves

8. The flower stems are stitched with 3 strands of floss (I used DMC 989) to make stem stitches. Make sure to leave enough room between the stems for the flower petals. I over lapped some of mine but you may not want to.

- outline the leaves with 1 strand of floss doing stem stitch ( I used DMC 906).

9. The flower petals are outlined with 2 strands of floss doing stem stitch ( I used DMC 721).

10. Fill in  the petals with 3 strands of floss doing straight stitch ( I used DMC 722).

11. The center if filled in with french knots using 3 strands of floss (I used DMC 727).

12. The leaves are lazy daisy stitches using 6 strands of floss ( I used DMC 906).

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

©Billie Jo Heisler 2023

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.