Happy Stitching... Dare 3

When Kathy announced the dare for this week was Stitching I though great, I have those stitching stamps I haven't used in a while, I'll have a play with them... but then she added, it has to be real stitches...eek!

Actually It's been something Ive wanted to have a go at for a while, but getting round to it, finding space on my craft desk to put the sewing machine , and remembering at a reasonable time of day rather than 2am when all the worlds asleep and doesn't want to listen to my machine rattling away. Add to that that I'm an expert procrastinator and you can see whay I never managed to play!

No matter how big my desk is it always seems to get covered instantly, does that happen to you? So after a big clear-up out came the machine, the threads and as usual I made a huge mess again with lots of noise too. Its great fun and definately worth giving it a go. Here's what I came up withPaper from the DCWV 12x12 Christmas Stack, machine stitched and letters cut using Ellison's Block Party Alphabet. My top tip is leave the long ends hanging and you can thread them through to the back by hand to keep it neat.The background here is made on the sewing machine just using a straight stitch in pink on dark brown card and zooming back and forth in a wobbly manner. I found it frayed a bit when I cut it to size but as I'd used (cheap) nylon thread, a quick blast of the heat gun round the edges melts the ends of the thread and stops it unravelling. A lighter works too, but dont use a candle, it leaves horrid sooty marks! Gorgeous ribbon from Little Silver Hat and the die for the cute cupcake is from Bosscuts.

Have fun sewing this week and if you do get round to it, we'd love to see what you make.