Sweetheart Bunting

Whilst I have been experimenting with my embroidered words on calico, I decided that I wanted to improve my skills and bought myself 'The Stitch Bible' by Kate Haxell. It covers a huge range of stitches from beginners to advanced along with a few projects to try along the way. I had some bunting in mind that I wanted to try, and I wanted to use a stitch that I had learnt when I was little...but had forgotten! I love blanket stitch, and it is a lovely yet practical stitch used on a lot of country craft. One of my favourite designers who uses this stitch a lot in her work is Jan Constantine who has a gorgeous range of hand embroidered textiles that I love.

I drew out my hearts on a paper template, and then made sure that they fitted on my bunting triangle.

Along with my embroidery book I bought a washable fabric marker pen, to help mark up smaller pieces for sewing. I started to draw around the hearts onto the white felt, however unfortunately being blue and being a pen it did soak all the way through to the other side, so that went straight in the bin! I then discovered that pencil worked just as well, so I stuck with that! Luckily it worked very well on the red.

I cut out a mixture of sizes and colours, and then started the embroidery using my new book! I had to adapt it slightly as I'm left handed and the hand that you hold the work in and the hand that you move the thread with are quite different, but once I had got used to it (and it took a little bit of time, it is definitely not like riding a bike!) it turned out quite well. 

I then added my favourite wooden buttons to the centre of half of the hearts, which added another layer and a different texture. The plain hearts will be sewn onto lace or decorative fabric to provide some more interest, and I'm looking forward to seeing the finished bunting string.

This was as far as I got over the weekend, however I plan to keep going next weekend to try and get the flags made and then I will need to attach them to the bias binding. This seems like an apt project coming up for Valentine's Day, so for once I've managed to hit the seasonal craft nail on the head!