July Morning Make 2022

Frankly, I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to try my hand at the classic red and black Ukrainian embroidery. A first generation Canadian on my Dad’s side with a Baba (grandmother) who never spoke English and spent her summers gardening and winters with a needle, I honestly never felt the need. I mean, we have oodles and oodles of her stitching in our homes. And that doesn't count the suitcase full an aunt stole and the probably hundreds of pieces she gave away to churches, family, and friends. (Much like it will be with my quilts when I die.) With the war in Ukraine and some pride in my heritage, plus a desire for some hand stitched over the summer, I decided to pick up the floss.

For patterns I dug into my stash of supplies I have from my Baba - books, papers, and patterns. I recognized pieces and fondly recalled the decoration she would make for our blouses in Ukrainian dance. All patterns, no instructions. Without her here to guide me I turned to the modern teacher: You Tube.

In the end I finished 4 small bits of embroidery. I didn’t set out to ‘make’ anything. For one, I had no idea how long it would take. Two, I figured it would get tedious to do the same repeating pattern for an entire month. And three, I don’t really need more pieces of embroidery in the house. All four pieces could, if I wanted to, be turned into bookmarks.

I found the whole process quite relaxing. Challenging at first, just because of the counting and need to follow patterns. Once you got into a rhythm, though, it became very soothing. I don’t know that I will do it again, but it was special to go back to my heritage this month.

March Morning Make 2022

Isn’t this so freaking’ adorable?

For Morning Make in March I made this little penguin ornament by hand. It is one month of Betz White’s Ornament of the Month Club. Betz was gracious enough to gift me a subscription so I could make ornaments this month.

I’ll be honest, I was unsure about this. I’ve long admire Betz’s felt work and her ornaments but was overwhelmed by the handwork, worried that it would all be too tedious. Participation through her online classes took all the fear away. Betz broke down every single step in a straightforward way, making it easy to understand and handle. One stitch at a time! For a Morning Make process, following along with her videos and tutorials allowed me to work a bit at a time. Again, making it more manageable.

And the end result is so cute!

Unfortunately, Covid hit me hard mid month. I was finished the penguin and had plans to make another ornament or two. With quarantine, however, I had no access to a printer to get the pattern. Bummer. (I chose sleep over Morning Make for the remainder of the month.)

Betz releases a new pattern each month in the club. Yes, they are ornaments, but they are not all winter/Christmas themed. I’m looking forward to getting those patterns printed and trying my hand at making a few more. I can’t resist, they’re just so cute!

Morning Make - February 2020

As the granddaughter of the quintessential Ukrainian Baba it might have been inevitable that I would embroider something at some point. I won’t lie, I’ve avoided, even resisted, embroidery over the years. That was Baba’s thing, not mine. When the girls played around with it I could support them, but stayed out of the way. Mostly, it just never appealed to me.

For February I decided to face it. A new stitch or motif every day for all 29 days. No commitment to finish a designed piece or fill a space. Just pure experimentation and play.

I did not account for really enjoying this.

To start, I fused a stabilizer (some random one in my drawer) to a piece of linen. I dug out my Baba’s stash of embroidery floss, colour sorted thanks to one of my daughters plus my stash of Valdani threads. I found a few videos on You Tube and a couple of books on my shelf to begin. Using basic stitches like back stitch, stem stitch, lazy daisy, and a running stitch I got the first few days in. Then I looked for more things to do. The more I looked, the more I wanted to try! There are a heck of a lot of embroidery stitches out there!!!

My one stipulation was that I only use one thread per day. A couple of times it was a variegated thread so it looks like more than that though. This limitation kept me from making intricate designs, both a good and a bad thing. Good because this was about learning stitches and experimenting. Also good because I only had my 20-30 minutes in the morning and more detailed work takes time. Bad because I would get really excited and start thinking about things I could do with the stitch and patterning if I could just add another colour or alternate stitches.

This is ultimately the point of these Morning Make exercises - to see what you can do with your limitations and open up your mind to creative possibilities!

I will confess, that part of the reason I wanted to do this was to see if I could find some potential quilting stitches. You see a lot more hand work beyond the perfect quilting stitches and cliche big stitch out there. Those are great, but could I do more than plus signs/Xs? Here is the back of the piece - what do you think?

Here are some of my favourite resources for technique or inspiration:

S is for Stitch by Kristyne Czepuryk
Handiworks You Tube Channel

@kim_broidery on Instagram

Now on to March! I’ve started the month with the flu so have chosen some relaxing Colour Meditations by Lisa Solomon via CreativeBug. They’ve been a lot of fun to share with my son, who is also sick.