New and Improved Queen of Hearts Embroidery Pattern

Hello all! Happy Friday!

With Valentine's Day coming up I decided to give a bit of a face lift to the Queen of Hearts embroidery pattern. Let me tell you what's new. . .

It always bugged me that I stitched her on red fabric. It looked cute on my daughter's T-shirt, but when it was isolated on the pattern cover I could only think of one thing. Painful sunburn. Now she's on plain muslin. Whew!

I satin stitched the hearts on her crown. What can I say - I've been a satin-stitching fool lately.

I added a couple more curls.

All the thread colors now come from the dark, medium and neutral thread bundles. Have I mentioned lately how much easier these thread bundles have made my life? I love them.

I've been playing a bit more lately with blended colors, and I used two different (easy, of course) techniques on this redesign.

I used whipped backstitch on her crown to give it a nice mix of yellow and orange. I like the regularity of this blending on the crown.

For her hair I wanted a different look and used a different technique.

I used 3 strands of brown mixed with one strand of pink and got nice, natural-looking pink highlights in her hair. I might have to start using this technique on all hair - you all know I love the fun-colored highlights I put in my rag dolls. :-)

So there she is! A new Queen of Hearts embroidery pattern, ready for some Valentine's Day (or any day) stitching.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Best,
Wendi

Show & Tell - Super Sly Cat Card

Look at this terrific card that Carrie made! Yes - card. It's stitched on paper! Here's what she wrote about it. . .

I wanted to share a card I made for a good friend who just turned the big 60! That cat just looks like he’s up to no good, so I had to show him thinking of something kinda mean : ) It was lots of fun stitching on paper!

Carrie - you did a great job! I love his thought bubble. :-) Thanks for sharing!

Anyone else want to give it a try? Here's a video showing how to embroider on paper and you can click here to download the free Sly Cat embroidery pattern. What devious thoughts will your cat be thinking?

Happy Thursday everyone!

Best,
Wendi

Ask Wendi - Prewashing Tea Towels

Do I have to wash new tea towels before I embroider them? And then should I iron them before I stitch them?

I prewash everything. Everything. I don't mess around. When I come back from the fabric store, everything I just bought goes straight into the laundry hamper and isn't allowed in my sewing room until it's been washed, dried and ironed. I'm a little obsessive about it - but I have a good reason.

The very first thing I ever sewed was a tablecloth. Truly, the ugliest, worst-made tablecloth the world has ever seen. One of the many things I did wrong was that I didn't prewash my fabric. So the first time I threw the tablecloth into the wash, it shrank just enough for every seam to pucker and look terrible. This was exacerbated by the fact that I had a seam running right down the middle of the table - the long way - but that's a whole other sewing problem. :-)

Now I always prewash everything.

Including tea towels.

They'll come out all wrinkly and you'll definitely want to iron them before you stitch on them. The hoop will leave rings in your fabric and you can press them out - but I usually throw the whole thing in the wash again. It's a towel, right? And it's going to be washed a million times. Just go ahead and wash those creases out. If you need to iron them after you've done the embroidery, do it carefully.

I don't like to iron my embroidery - it compresses the stitches and they don't look as nice. I've found that if you iron from the back of the piece over a layer of terrycloth towel (so the stitches have something to sink into) the stitches don't get squished.

Good luck!

Got any other sewing or embroidery questions? Send them to me here.

Happy Wednesday!

Best,
Wendi