Handmade gifts are my love language. Each year, I have a great (and genuinely unrealistic🤦‍♀️) plan to work ahead and create meaningful presents for family and friends. You would think that with the many years I have spent sewing, that I would be able to estimate the hours necessary to craft these gems, however I am forever an optimist, and always end up pulling a few seriously late nights finishing up the details.🥱🪡 

Christmas this year was no exception. I planned to embroider a small picture for my mother, as well as create tree ornaments for my five sisters. The image below is the finished fairy embroidery I gifted to my mom.🧚‍♀️💫

Stitching this picture for my mother was especially fun. She loves to sew and always notices the tiniest of details, so I knew exactly the type of piece I wanted to create. I started with a wonderful fabric that I had been saving for years (it was an upholstery sample). Using fabric that is pre-printed with a beautiful design is a great hack when you want to embroider something quickly. It virtually becomes a "paint-by-numbers", as you match your embroidery floss to the design underneath.

I knew the fabric would make a wonderful base, and using the oval embroidery hoop I planned to use as a frame, I moved around the fabric, comparing different placements within the pattern until I found a composition I really liked. Because I was planning to add a fairy charm, the charm placement was considered right from the beginning.  

 Once I had the location decided, I marked the oval outline with chalk and proceeded to gather embroidery floss and silk ribbon to match the pattern. I knew I wouldn't embroider every single change in colour, but I planned to let the design evolve as I stitched.One area at a time, I let the printed design guide my stitching. The centre of the flower was perfect for French knots and glass beads, while many of the stem and leaf details only needed an outline of straight stiches. The larger leaves used a combination of long and short stitches to blend the green threads, and I ended up outlining them in a dark grey to give them definition. To highlight the main flower, I added a couple rows of gold thread - these tiny details are only noticed later, but add interest to the overall piece. I had some lovely hand-dyed silk ribbon that I used for the flower buds.     The real fun for me was in the dense area at the bottom of the scene. I hadn't planned to cover the entire printed space, but once I began adding flowers, it just continued to grow!💐  I used the original fabric design to guide my colour choices and was able to combine some premade ribbon flowers from my stash with some silk ribbon embroidery. Whenever I'm using premade flowers, I use silk ribbon to add a few French knots and flowers to disguise the "cheat" flowers. Sparkly glass beads finish the cluster.✨

TIP: If you plan to frame your embroidery in a hoop, make sure you place the glass beads and heavier embroidery 1/4" in from where the frame hits to make framing easy and prevent breaking any thread. Use a chalk pencil to mark it out. If you look at the close-up below, you can see how only the fabric is pressed in the frame. I prefer to stitch with my fabric loose, so pre-marking the frame outline is key.    

Once the stitching was complete, I cut out the oval shape with approximately a 2" fabric allowance around to allow for finishing. Using bias tape to cover the raw edge, I machine-stitched the tape around to stop any fraying. Next, using a strong thread, I hand basted a running stitch through the bias tape, all around the piece, so I could gather the edge in behind the hoop. After the piece was secured into the wooden hoop (and pulled taut), I cinched the edge together, adding extra stitches to hold any folds in the fabric in place. 

The final stitches were made around midnight on Christmas Eve!⌛😅 Somehow, the excitement of giving it to my mom the following day made it easy to stay awake. I love to give personal gifts that show my loved ones how much they mean to me, and I know that she will enjoy looking at it for years to come!🎄💝