Embroidered Kitty Art

Just completed my first project inspired from Amanda Soule's book The Creative Family. Her blog, Soule Mama, is chock full of ideas just like her book. This project involved turning one of my 4 year old's drawings into a wall hanging. After the image is traced onto fabric it is then embroidered. This was a fun, easy project ~ I have another drawing all penciled and ready to sew.

For the embroidery, I started out using a backstitch but then switched about 1/3 through to an outline stitch. I'm much better at the outline stitch and I also think it has a more polished appearance. I used a regular ol' pencil to trace the drawing on some linen fabric. I used a thin cotton batting for the middle and backed it in 100% cotton. Instead of a traditional binding, I used a method called birthing (yeah, that's right) a quilt to finish it off. I gave it 2 hanging loops out of red rickrack.

Looking through The Creative Family reminded me of all the projects my mom did with our art work. She used fabric crayons and pens instead of embroidery, but the idea is just the same. I dug up some potholders she made with my drawings. They are dated 1980, I was 8(!). She made pillows and potholders. Mostly potholders. Millions of potholders. We must have given these to family members and friends for many years. Not only did she turn our artwork into stuff, she did so for the neighborhood kids too. Hmmmm, I sense a post about my crafty mom coming up .

Stay tuned.