A home fit for a stitcher

Last September I joined an Embroidery Group, having been on the waiting list for over two years! With fellow stitchers who had been attending classes for, in some cases, 18 years the standard of the work being produced was intimidatingly high.

I decided to make a 3-D sewing box that would give me the chance to try out several New to Me techniques. The original plan was to make the box as a Christmas present for my daughter-in-law, but needless to say Christmas came and went without a finish in sight!

Each year the Group holds an exhibition of their work in the venue and this year's exhibition is taking place today (May 13th) and tomorrow in St Andrew's Cottage, Corbridge. So, the pressure was on to finish the box to have at least one thing to show in the exhibition, and here it is, my Stitchers House.

Each side of the cottage is a different technique, so you can see above lots of French Knots for the rambling roses and then ribbon embroidery for the apple tree.

You can see the apple tree better here. The grapes on the vine are all seed beads and the geraniums in the basket are more ribbon embroidery.

The fourth side has a removable pin cushion attached, which I filled with a metal scouring pad to help keep my pins sharp.

Of course, I made life more difficult for myself by following a French magazine for this project so when it came to putting the box together there was a fair amount of "winging it" involved :) The linen of the embroidered panels needed interfacing to stop it from fraying too much, but it was difficult to interface the beaded panel sufficiently so there was lots of finger crossing going on at that stage. If I was making another one I would tackle the construction slightly differently, but hindsight is a wonderful thing!

Inside the box contains a felt needle holder, gathered pocket (what a nightmare that was to do!), a ring to hold embroidery scissors and two rings for threads. The pincushion in the middle is the removable one from the fourth side.

Although I probably rushed the construction at the end to make it in time for the exhibition, it has been a very enjoyable project to do. You know me, I can never pass up the opportunity to try something new, so to have lots of new to me techniques in one project is most definitely up my street!

If you happen to be in the Corbridge area on May 13th or 14th, do pop in and have a look at the exhibition. Some of the pieces on display will blow you away.

Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts