branching out!

On Friday, instead of fighting the crowds to save a couple dollars, I got together with my friend Catherine to get a little embroidery lesson! She's fantastic with embroidery and I just bought pattern for embroidered felt ornaments, so I wanted so advice.

We met at a coffee shop and I showed her my fabric and quilt block pattern that I'm going to use for a wall hanging for my mother (more to come about that!) and she showed me a bunch of embroidered pieces that she'd made over the years and now plans to make into a quilt. We got some coffee and looked at some books she brought - one was a book that had stuffed animals and dolls in it and right on the cover was the doll that my grandmother made me when I was a kid! what are the chances!?! After that we got down to business and started making ornaments - mine was from the pattern, which I ended up having to freehand onto the felt because I couldn't get anything to transfer it well, and hers, because she's all artistic and can just draw things, was a bird based on some old school ornaments in one of the books. Mine was supposed to be nearly all satin stitch which seemed kind of difficult, and also kind of boring after looking at all the stitch patterns that she'd used on her stuff. I ended up just doing whatever I wanted to and didn't worry about filling in the spaces with solid color. Before we knew it, it was like 3 hours later! I didn't feel like I got a lot done there - embroidery always takes longer than I think it will! That evening though, I finished it up. And I love it! I wish I'd take the time to do stuff like this more often - diversify my craftiness a little instead of always letting my knitting win!