I'm on an embroidering kick...

and I'm using up those thrifted linen shirts, project by project!

Previously I showed you needlebooks made from the shirts and here's the latest hand-embroidered sewing project:

Both of the projects are from Sew Pretty Homestyle. Maybe I should warn you that I'll probably be making/showing you more of these in the near future. I love the simplicity of them and the soft colours of the linen keep calling to me... they seem to be whispering of warmer weather and Spring flowers. sigh.

*I guess I should satisfy the curiousity of those that asked about the methods I previously used for transferring designs onto fabric for embroidering.

1. It's sounds rather unsophisticated and sad, but I used a regular pencil on tracing paper. Then to transfer the design onto the fabric I simply turned the paper over so that the pencil lead would come off onto the fabric as I retraced over the pencil lines on the reverse side of the paper. This method wasn't exactly foolproof. I often ended up freehanding the design as my transfer lines could be intermittent or just a bit messy. It's difficult to maintain smooth lines when drawing on fabric with a regular pencil - believe me, I speak from experience. Nevertheless, this became my usual method (worked better than #2 or #3 detailed below) and I have managed to muddle my way through some embroidery projects this way. ;o)

2. Before this, I had attempted using disappearing ink markers at one point, but gave up on them (I got tired of having the markings fade before finishing which led to extra time spent redrawing the design to be embroidered over and over again on the fabric...which is of course less troubling than the fear that the ink will be permanent!).

3. I briefly considered using dressmakers transfer paper (which works great for transferring pattern markings such as darts onto fabric when used with a tracing wheel), but this stuff has several disadvantages in transferring small designs onto fabric. Most notably is that the tracing wheel is useless for the small designs I want to transfer. Oh and did I mention it will leave marks where you don't want if you're not careful enough when handling it during the tracing procedure? Then there's the fact that placement of your designs can be trickier as you can't see through this paper like you can through tracing paper.

Okay, I think you now know why I was happy to discover the transfer pencil that you iron your drawn design onto the fabric. So much easier, faster and accurate. Yipee!