Sew Simple Sampler

The other weekend I fancied sewing something that wouldn’t take too long, as I am a bit impatient when I make things and want to see the results fast!  I had seen some china plates that on each plate had a different letter on them that spelt out the word HOME.  This was my inspiration.

I knew I had an embroidery hoop which measures 7″ in size.  Embroidery hoops are very cheap and I think mine didn’t cost much more than £2 tops.  I decided I wanted the background to be quite plain so used the fabric from a cotton tote bag that I no longer wanted, the fabric on this was unbleached so had a more natural tone.  I cut this to a rough size for the hoop, leaving a fair amount of excess at the back.  I put the plain fabric in the hoop to get an idea of position. If you position your sampler so that the tightening screw is at the top you can use this to hang it up by.

I wrote the letters out onto paper first – making sure I got a similar width and height , mine measured approximately 2.5″ tall by 2″ wide.  I then placed and pinned these onto some patterned fabric and cut them out.  I then pinned the fabric letters onto some Bondaweb (it has double-sided adhesion) cut round and ironed them together.  I peeled the backing off of the Bondaweb, positioned the letters in place on the plain fabric and made some guideline marks for where the letters would go and then removed the plain fabric from the hoop and ironed it in place.

I put the fabric back into the hoop and then stitched around the letters, with 2 strands of embroidery floss, in blanket stitch.  I then added a few cross stitch kisses and added a little wooden button heart to it and stitched a little heart in back-stitch.

After completing it all and feeling pretty pleased with myself my daughter advised me I should have made the ‘O’ into a heart shape!  Of course she was right – maybe next time 🙂

I cut the excess fabric off at the back leaving enough fabric so that I could do a running stitch around the back to gather the excess fabric in.

I was really pleased with the results in a short amount of time!

I’d love to know if anyone has had a go at any of the makes on my blog, it would be great to hear from you.

Thank you to all of you who have signed up to follow my blog too!

Heart Home

I am trying to set myself a goal of posting once a week!  Seeing as the weather this weekend has been lovely (before this it seemed to have been raining for what felt like a month), I have spent most of the weekend in the garden with my family turning an overgrown mess into something I could sit in should the sun come out again!

Our Gnome!

Therefore although I have quite a few ideas to post I haven’t put them into action!  Saying that I thought you may be interested in an online British magazine I have found, it’s called ‘Heart Home’ it’s very good and has lots of lovely pictures to do with interior design inspiration, below are a few images, and the bonus is its FREE!  There is also an interview with Holly Becker who is another blogger I follow myself.

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Hope you enjoy looking at the pictures and reading the magazine!

Thank you for stopping by, I hope to keep to my goal and be back next week! x