Bunny - the freehand machine embroidery tutorial

I' ve just listed my new Bella pouch. This time I've adorned it with an embroidered bunny and I wanted to put together a short tutorial - since I didn't have any water soluble film I used a transfer pencil to carry the drawing onto the fabric.

1

First I looked for a nice picture of a rabbit; I wanted a clear side view to make a simplified silhouette. I didn't want to just copy the image so I outlined the basic shape of the bunny in Photoshop, made its tail a bit more obvious and added another ear for more depth. I printed out the drawing and traced it on a piece of transparent paper - I could have also used a picture from a magazine or some other printed image and traced it directly from there.

2

Since I wanted my bunny to face right as it did on the original photo, I turned the transparent paper over to get the drawing's mirror image and drew over the lines again, this time with a transfer pencil, the kind that can be washed away later. I carefully placed the drawing on my linen canvas and ironed over it on medium heat. The transfer pencil left a visible enough trace - it was later completely covered with embroidery thread, otherwise I would have gently cold washed the canvas to get rid of the drawing underneath the embroidery.

3

I then fixed some tear-away stabilizer paper on the back of my drawing - I used tape but could have also used a more fancy self adhesive stabilizer. I adjusted my sewing machine to freehand embroidery (which means I dropped the feed dogs and installed a darning/embroidery presser foot) and slowly followed the drawing with my needle. I'm just starting to get the hang of this freehand embroidery so I like to go over the drawing several times to create a "hand drawn" look rather than trying to create a perfect silhouette. When I was done, I carefully pulled all the cut ends of threads from the front into the back with a don't-ask-me-how-it's-called-in-English tool and tied them firmly together so they don't unravel later. It is a boring task so I try to "draw" my embroidery in one piece (in this case in two, the eye was sewn separately).

In the end I tore the excess stabilizer paper away. Done!

4

Picture 4 shows how the bunny looked on both sides of the fabric...

...and this is the final result - the Bella zipper pouch.

A Tote bag for Lily

The small personalized tote bags I've made a while ago for Leoni and Michelle came out quite nicely so I used the same pattern to make one for my daughter.

Lily and I go to toddler gym once a week for an hour of active play, climbing over obstacles, up the ladders, down the slildes... She will use her tote bag to carry her water bottle, her workout socks with non-sliding nubs, a change of nappies and a snack for afterwards. There might even be some room left for her teddy bear.

Totes for kids

When Gaston left his nanny or Tagesmutter, as Germans call it (meaning "daytime mother"), he got some beautiful going away presents from all of her family, like a photo album of the months spent in their home and a handpainted callender, mostly done by his two "daytime sisters", nanny's 3 and 8 -year old daughters, who were very fond of him.

I wanted to give something to the girls to thank them for their love and so I've embroided their names (thanks to my new machine embroidery foot, see previous posts) and sewed it into small tote bags, just large enough to carry around some books, toys or crafting materials. The totes are 30 cm (almost 12 inch) wide and 22 cm (8.5 inch) tall, with a T-shaped bottom seam of 10 cm (4 inch) and handles measuring 35.5 cm (14 inch) from end to end. I have lined this beautiful striped canvas with bright red cotton and I think the black stripe with red embroidery gives it a nice touch.

Now all I need is to find a nice name for it and I can offer some in my shop...

Try-something-new Friday

This evening I finally got a chance to try out the new embroidery foot I bought for my Bernina. It is in fact a darning foot No. 9 but it works very well for free machine embroidery. I've always admired these delicate drawings with thread and have decided to try it myself.

I grabbed a piece of light linen fabric and outlined a small car with my marking chalk. I then stitched around the basic lines, "drawing" additional features of the car as I went along. It is not a masterpiece but it will do for a first try - next time I will draw a more complicated design on a piece of water soluble film and perhaps make a mean construction-site machine for my son's T shirt...