How to Begin Your Slow Stitching Nature Journal - Pt.2

[Music] [Music] so welcome to another little slow Stitch video um first of all thank you so so much for all of your lovely comments and lovely response to the first video um so excited that so many of you are going to start slow stitching and also so many people have said they're actually going to start a journal of some kind in nature journal or one lovely idea the lady said was she was going to do a memory journal and I think that's so lovely um the other lovely thing about doing that is as same lady I believe it was pointed out that the lovely thing about a journal is that you don't feel any pressure to finish your piece and move on to the next because it's an ongoing process you can just pick it up put it down and it's always there waiting for you and if you feel like you need a break for it that's fine but actually the ongoing process of a bigger piece is so relaxing and I would really recommend it so I thought i' just catch you up with what I've been doing over the last week so this is Charlie the fox who is one of our little patterns that I think was in one of our um nature Journal boxes from last year and I thought he was perfect for this nature Journal because there are some little foxes that we saw back in January first of all uh fairly close by to where I walk here and so Charlie when he's finished is going to go on to January so floss as I've said before when you have embroidery floss this is DMC there are lots of other different makes that you can get DMC and anchor always very good because the colors are lovely the sheen is lovely they're completely color fast and they're quite affordable so it will come in six strands and for this I use two strands for around the ears and the outside and then one strand for the rest of him and I love him I'm really enjoying stitching him so I'm going to finish him and then he will be put on to January and that is I've used three number 300 for that one you're interested I've also been doing a little bit of um Hazel katkins um lots of little French knots and I put that on using I drew using my friction fine liner which I love [Music] and they just use they just go on like this one goes on like felt pen you can get a rollable one and you just remove it with heat so the touch of an iron or a hair dryer or any kind of heat and you will get rid of your marks so this looks pretty ugly but at the end it will all be gone do be careful not to apply heat while you've still got your design on there else the whole thing will disappear that's happened to me too that's one of the disadvantages of it so that will on probably um towards the right of my snow drop so that's another little thing I'm working on and then this is my the beginnings of my nature Journal this is February little snow drop which I stitched using a single strand of floss because I wanted it to look a little bit more delicate and a little quotation because I love my words actually at this point I need to point out that I've changed the fabric that I was going to use so I was initially going to use bear with I was initially going to use this beautiful Taber cloth which would have been lovely and it was a perfect size but I realized that it wasn't going to work for me because if you can see it is actually quite thin and I like to put a lot I like to do a lot of a peque with sometimes heavier Fabrics cuz I like to use vintage Linens and I thought that combined with the fact that I think you'll see the thread behind so if I'm stitching words and there's just a bit of thread I wouldn't um on this fabric change my threads you can see I've gone from one to the other because I know you can't see it through and I likeed do a lot of text and I thought that means I'm going to have to constantly be um cutting my thread or you're going to be able to see it through so for a number of reasons that's not worked out and that's fine so I've gone with something heavier so this is an old uh piece of linen vintage french linen and I think it's going to be lovely it's lovely to stitch into it's so important that if you're going to do a year-long project that you like your fabric you're stitching into because otherwise it's going to annoy you uh this takes embroidery thread really nicely quite difficult to stitch a heavier fabric into this is quite a heavier th linen and I've got really wobbly lines which I didn't realize at the time when I was doing it I was listening to something at the same time and probably not concentrating but actually that's fine I'm going to leave the wobbly lines cuz I like the wobbly lines and I'm going to on my last year's one I did lots of um couching this is couching thread where you you Stitch thread down which I will talk to you about um and I think what I'm going to do this year is I'm going to still do those lines which kind of connected the seasons and connected my thoughts but I'm going to do it differently using little flowers which I talk about and so that will be fine and it's also quite organic and I like it and I don't want it to be perfect which is just as well so anyway I've added some polka dots so what I tend to do is I I put all my colors I've got lots and lots of scraps of fabric as well which I won't um empty here but I use my colors and I just think about how it's all going to go together I love porka dot so that's my that's my snow drop I'm going to add some little snow flakes actually on the ground underneath so now on to my next what I'm going to add on to it next so this was January from my uh 2023 nature Journal this is Little Jenny Ren which is one of our little patterns and I love little Ren we have a ren in the garden and I can hear her more than I can see sorry I can sense I can see her moving around more than I can clearly see her because she scurries around on the ground so I think I'm going to do another little Ren but I'm going to do it differently perfect time to talk about why I use a bigger piece onto my main fabric firstly because your main fabric this is quite it depends how big yours is going to be this is quite a big piece and to have this and try and move it round when you're stitching on it can be a bit annoying slow stitching is all about mindfulness and enjoying what you're doing so make it as easy for yourself as possible so I tend to do this on a smaller piece Stitch it on and then as you can see I will then embroider and add to it so I've decided to go with another little Ren so in the same way as I added color to Charlie I'm just going to use some ink tense pencils to um add a bit more depth to little journey [Music] [Music] Ren [Music] [Music] so I've added a little bit of color and that's all I wanted is a little base so what I think I'm going going to do whereas last time on my nature Journal I just I Stitch around the outside of her what I think I'm going to do is I'm going to stitch around this part and definitely Stitch her little eye but I think her wings I think I'm going to weave so in this little flower that I did the begin the center here is weaving so I think I'm going to use this weaving on the wing that's what I'm thinking I don't know if will evolve and do some applique for the tail and see how it goes I'm just going to begin by putting a few stitches on round here and then um she will evolve gradually over the next few days as I kind of find her character and then when I'm ready she'll be popping onto the onto the nature Journal [Music] so before I starts a couple of things I just wanted to say first of all I put my work in a hoop that's just personal preference that's what I prefer to do it's how I like to work but you you don't need it you don't need a hoop at all you may find you prefer to have the fabric just in your hands that's fine um needles so I tend to the needle that you use will very much depend upon the thickness of your Fabric and of your thread if I'm using a couple of pieces of embroidery floss two or three pieces my go-to needle would be an embroidery um size seven is where I would start from probably now an embroidery needle as opposed to a sharp or a normal sewing needle will have a longer eye which is easier to get your thread through as opposed to a sharp a normal sewing needle which will have a much smaller eye if you're doing a pque where I've got very thin thread for that that and you'll have a teeny tiny little um eye of the needle and you've only got and it's nice and um slim for going through your Fabrics cuz you're going through a couple of fabrics at a time tiny little stitches so as a rule of thumb I tend to start with a number seven but work you you tend to get needles this is uh 1 to 10 you very often get needles will come in sizes 3 to n say um if you buy a pack of them that should sort you out for quite a few different threads and just just try them out there's no hard and fast [Music] roll [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so I've had a complete change of heart as I was stitching um this little Ren and I actually put the eye in which I don't normally do till the end because I wasn't sort of getting a sense of who this little bird was and I've realized it's not a Jenny Ren it's a Jeremiah Ren and I've ended up I've kind of decided I think I'm going to fill most of this but I'm still going to do the weaving here and I'm still going to do the applique so I think for the tail feather I've been playing with this because I like these little dots on it because it sort of reminds me of the little um Flex that you get all through the ren so I may use that for the tail I'm not quite sure I'm pleas it I was looking at this which was also lovely but um I think that's probably a bit too thick I quite like that I like this also because it's not it's a bit of fun so I'm not trying to Faithfully reproduce the ren it's just about having fun well there is this one as well so I don't know I'm going to go away and have a think about that and probably do that next and then see how the rest of this Transitions and I need to get some lighter colors through here so I'll show you that um in the next video that said I was just putting this away and I've just found this which is some um fabric that I tea dyed and I actually think that is going to be perfect so I think I'm going to use that so that's good moving on [Music] now so I'm going to sew something on here now and I'm just trying to work out where it's going to go so I've decided that my little capkin will go probably here um between sort of February and March and I'm going to put my little be on so lovely to have already seen our first B so I think that's probably going to go this is sort of my space for March so I think I'm probably going to put it I don't really want it even maybe down here yeah that's that looks nice so what I'm going to do is just put a couple of little pins in I use these little applique pins because you don't stab yourself with them quite so often they're just much nicer to use for this so this line here was the line of the outside of the hoop I literally just drew around the outside of the hoop and then what I'm going to do is just use this red line which will disappear um I normally just mark it finger press it and put it down and then literally I will Stitch that on here now you can cut this so you're just doing little bits folding little bits if it's easier um but this is the way I do it so this is a little B I'm putting two in there this is a little bee that I embroidered quite some time ago and he's been fluttering around looking for his forever home and now he's found it and I also love the fact that this is such a contrast to this so when I sew these on I use this is gray actually which is I can't find my cream color thread and this is a 50 we thread which is very thin and I'm using my small pque needle and basically I'm coming in on the line and then all I'm going to do all the way around is just bite into the fabric and bite into the end of that and Stitch it on and I don't know why but this is one of my favorite things to do my favorite most relaxing kind of stitching and it's lovely to add on another little piece and see your Journal [Music] grow [Music] so that's my little be stitched on obviously needless to say you don't need um a pattern you can put anything in the center of yours you can put a slow Stitch piece of any any style I just wanted to incorporate something that I'd already stitched before so what I would do now is look look how these two join and by having my little um oh pen um hazel cat in there I can sort of see this transition with the yellow my be so what I would probably do is get out quite a few scraps of fabric and get some threads together and just see how I want this to look I want I'm going to want to join these things I like the idea of the bee flying off to all the different flowers on my piece so the way I've decided to do that is by having lots and lots of little flowers so it'll be a line that I draw and and on that line there'll be lots of little flowers so this transition here I'm thinking will probably be green and yellow and then here I'll have some little yellow flowers and scraps this is what I've saying to you about scraps so these are all my little liberty scraps and when I wash them I put them in a wash bag already torn so that you have them when they come out of the wash they're already scrunched up and you get tiny little bits so I'll do that with the colors that I like I just put them in with my washing and you get these lovely little bits of fabric that are already there for you just to think oh I'm going to stitch that on once you get the colors that you want so get your threads and get your fabric scraps maybe that's how you'll start quite like that to go between those two maybe um it's got the yellow and green quite like clap and then just see where it takes you maybe make a little sof puff out of a scrap of fabric that's my favorite thing to do as well so I hope that that's inspired you with the direction that your stitching might take so looking backwards can be a really good way to go sometimes see if if you you've done stitching before look at what you've done before and see how you can maybe change it in the case of this Ren or with my um couching the way that I think I'm going to do the same line but I'm going to make make it Little Flowers so your stitching can always develop and you can move on in Little Steps really without without even really knowing you're doing it yet so basically there are no rules seeing that there I'm definitely going to make a little suff puff out of that because I think that's introducing a little bit of color and I also like that little bit of pink so yeah just be guided by your instinct and the great thing about this bigger bit of stitching is you can if you're not feeling it one particular day you can put it down and go off and sew something else that actually can still be for your nature Journal you don't have to be stitching on the main piece you might pick up so I might pick up my little Ren or I might pick up my the uh the Hazel capin so this is lovely because you can work on the main piece or you can work on Little Bits that are going onto it so do let me know what you'd like to see I think I'm going to make one next week on the writing to just let you know how to how to get your writing on there and uh the stitches that you might use because there are many many different ways of doing that um fabric scraps collect your fabric scraps give them a tear put them through the wash they're all nice and Scrappy and and scrunched up and just use any Fabrics you've got we do put together some lovely little um sets of fabric it's called our Salvage Chronicles range our porcelain and Roses one if you've ordered it it's going out starts going out on Monday and we have a new one called blossoms which is in the shop today um but use just remember to keep all your scraps of fabric nothing is too small to throw away so really hope you've enjoyed this episode and there are lots more to come so if you have enjoyed it do like and remember to subscribe I'll put this video into the slow Stitch playlist and hopefully we can continue stitching together happy stitching [Music] [Music]

Channel: Sherry Iris

Views: 7,154

Keywords: crafts, stitching projects, new sewing video, beginner sewing, beginner stitching, slowstitch, slowstitchingproject, nature journal, nature journalling, nature journaling, journalling, journaling, jurnaling, journeling, journelling, nature, slow stitch nature

Id: sShR5k2F-m0

Length: 24min 10sec (1450 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 02 2024