Hello friends,
Today is World Embroidery Day! I hope you will find time for a few stitches. :-)
To celebrate, I have made this free embroidery pattern, Stitch Kindness:
In the pattern there are two versions of the design, with text or without. I have also included the flowers on their own. It doesn’t include colour or stitch suggestions. The pattern is a line drawing but that doesn’t mean that you have to only stitch the lines. It would be fun to fill in some of the shapes, or maybe all of them.
I usually only have time to stitch my own patterns but when I do stitch someone else’s pattern I tend to not follow the pattern exactly. Change the colours, add more stitches, fill in shapes that were just outlines in the original. I think of patterns more like recipes. Add more chili if you want more heat, add more garlic (honestly, a recipe that suggests one or two cloves of garlic? You might as well not bother with the garlic then! :-D ) or more oregano. Etc, etc. A pattern is not a rulebook to be followed exactly (unless that is what you want of course), but a starting point for our own creativity.
So it always makes me very excited when people share versions of my patterns that look quite different. It is so inspiring, so tasty! ;-)
Happy stitching!
x Carina
Some Things I Enjoyed This Week
I just started reading Loved Clothes Last* by Orsola Castro, it’s interesting. The subtitle of the book is How the Joy of Rewearing and Repairing Your Clothes Can Be a Revolutionary Act. If you are interested in the cycle of clothes and how we can look after our clothes so they don’t end up in landfill, I think you’ll find this book interesting.
Speaking of clothing, do you know the Swedish clothing brand Gudrun Sjödén? Their autumn collection was just released and I spent an enjoyable half hour leafing through the catalogue, full of pattern and colour and lots of floral motifs.
I have signed up for an online sketching class. The class doesn’t start until next week but I have been getting materials together and doing a few sketches in preparation. More sketching is always good! :-)
*Bookshop.org affiliate link.