Freemotion Embroidery Fun

I’ve been spending some time recently trying out a bit more freemotion machine embroidery, it’s very absorbing. I’ve found that the double-sided iron on interface really helps alot – it means that you don’t have to contend with the fabric layers slipping. I’m quite enjoying practicing my machine writing too. I bought a book a little while ago that has lots of useful tips on applique and freemotion embroidery along with some really lovely projects too – definitely worth investing in a copy if you’re just starting out with this kind of sewing. It’s called Scandinavian Stitches by Kajsa Wikman.

So here’s a small selection of what I’ve been doing…

I thought I’d try a little fabric portrait of my favourite sock gardener, Alan Pitchfork. Here he is with his very own ‘Alan’ purse!

This is a padded mat about 7″ square to use for standing hot things on, this is for my sister so I hope she doesn’t look at this before I send it to her! I tried a bit of freemotion writing on this one…

And then a few mini fabric baskets with teacups, apples & pears and cakes…

I think I might make some of the padded mats for myself – maybe in coaster sizes – I could do with replacing my current ones, and these were very easy to make – I used the method from the Scandinavian Stitches book. The fabrics for the images were from a mixed pack of 5″ squares from Stitch Me Lane on Folksy – she has lots of gorgeous stuff to choose from.

I’d love to see what freemotion embroidery projects others have been working on so feel free to leave blog links. Thanks for looking.