This link stitch geometric hoop is the perfect project to practice your link stitches! It is designed to be something to work on over time, and I know you’re going to love seeing the geometric pattern build as you add more stitches.  This design is for week 3 of The Happy Stitch Project, and you just need a few materials to stitch this. I have used perle thread for this hoop, as I prefer to use it for link stitches. Perle thread is mercerised (which is the term that I could not remember when recording the videos!) which means that it doesn’t split like the standard DMC embroidery thread. No 8 perle is the same thickness as 3 strands of standard thread, so it’s great for a project like this. You can use 3 strands of standard thread for this design if you want to – just do whatever works for you! I do have some perle thread in my haberdashery now in case you want to add some to your stash

If you don’t want to use a plain fabric for this, have a look in your stash and see what you already have! You could easily add some link stitches around some dots on a dotty fabric – or be really inventive and add them to another pattern. Don’t forget to share your stitching with me @hellohoorayblog!

Materials

I have used a 15cm (6″) hoop for this project (the one in the video is hand painted in the Alfie colour from my shop)

A 24cm x 24cm piece of white linen fabric or a good quality quilting cotton like this one

A 1cm dotted grid template – I downloaded mine here

A pencil

An Aquatrick marker pen (or another method that has some permanence)

Needles – a couple are useful, one for each colour! You’ll find a variety of them here.

Perle thread – two contrasting colours in No. 8 size (available in my haberdashery). I’m using shades 959 and 793 here. You’ll eventually need some to finish the back of the hoop, but we’ll come to that next week…

Watch the link stitch geometric hoop video

If you’d like to watch the link stitch tutorial video first, click here!

Step 1

Secure the printed dotted grid template to a flat surface. Take the inner ring of your embroidery hoop, place it on top and then draw around the inner edge with a pencil.

Step 2

Place your fabric on top of the template, and then use your Aquatrick marker (or similar) to mark on all the dots that appear inside the circle. Remove the fabric once complete, and place in your embroidery hoop.

Step 3

Thread a needle with some of the first colour of perle. Select a dot as a starting point, and stitch a link stitch up to the next dot along. Secure with a small tie stitch. Repeat a further three times from the starting point, so a cross shape is formed of four stitches in the same colour. Carefully tie off at the back.

Step 4

Thread the other needle with the other colour perle thread, and repeat step 3 but directly next to the cross shape you have already stitched. The ends of the link stitches should touch.

Step 5

Keep stitching alternate colours to build up the pattern (see video). Eventually, the whole hoop will be covered in this pattern.

What’s coming next week?

So if you watched all the way to the end of the video, you’ll know that I am going to be working on completing this hoop over the coming week. We’ll also add a few more little details to it in the form of French knots, which is the stitch we’re learning in week 4 of The Happy Stitch Project – yay! Don’t be afraid of French knots, as once you’ve got the knack you’ll be a pro in no time!

If you’ve enjoyed reading this, you might like these…

Geometric meal planner

Perpetual paper chains

Geometric painted roll-up blinds

And if you missed the first project, here’s where you’ll find the sprinkles hoop.

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This customised denim jacket is a project from my book, Colourful Fun Embroidery, and it is the perfect project for week 2 of The Happy Stitch Project!

This week’s stitch is satin stitch. Have I told you how much I love satin stitch?! I guess if you’ve seen lots of my designs then you have probably guessed! It takes a little practice, but once you get it right then there will be no stopping you I love this stitch because you can use it to cover different sized areas really easily, and it’s just so versatile.  And in my tutorial video on YouTube, you’ll be able to follow the process and learn a great technique for satin stitch.

About the customised denim jacket

This project is designed to take your time over, so it isn’t a quick one. It appears in the ‘Pick Me Up’ section of my book, where all of the projects take time to stitch but are things that you will want to keep coming back to. The great thing about this project is that you can stitch a bit and then wear it, even if you plan to add more stitching later. And even better, nobody will have a jacket exactly the same as yours! It’s so easy to do, and this denim jacket customisation will leave you wanting to customise more I’m sure!

You’ll need to do a bit of preparation before you get started with this project. All the instructions are given below, but please note that step 1 is not shown on the video. You could also take the principles of this design and customise another garment, or even make a hoop if you prefer! You’ll find this project on pages 108-111 of Colourful Fun Embroidery too.

Materials

A denim jacket

Lightweight interfacing big enough to cover the back shoulder panel of the jacket

Loose ends of thread (or a selection of your own specific colours)

An air erasable pen

An iron

Instructions

1. Wash, dry and iron your jacket. Then turn it inside out, and cut a piece of lightweight interfacing big enough to cover the back shoulder panel (I just did this by eye). Iron it onto the inside of the jacket, according to manufacturer’s instructions.

2. Turn the jacket the right way out and lay it on a flat surface. Use the air erasable pen to draw the first shape. I drew a small triangle to start. Thread a needle with 3 strands of a colour from your loose ends, and then cover the shape with satin stitch. Don’t worry if you run out of a particular colour half way through stitching a shape – just use another colour as I have done here.

3. Draw a few more shapes around the first one, and then continue to stitch with different colours to build up your design. You could even leave a few shapes unstitched in the middle so that the denim shows through in some places.

4. Although the design and stitching process for this jacket is very free, you might want to think about these tips to help:

• Keep the size of the shapes quite small, as this will help to maintain the right tension of thread as you stitch. If it is too loose, it will just look baggy rather than being neat and tidy.
• Don’t draw too many shapes in advance or the pen marks will disappear. Stick to drawing one or two at a time, drawing over the lines again as you need to.
• As you stitch, don’t leave big gaps between stitches in case you run out of the colour thread you are using. Complete a smaller colour block and switch to another colour if the shape is not covered.
• Using a thread conditioner will really help the stitching process and will also help to maintain the look of the stitching as you wear the jacket.

I decided to stitch a few small areas over the back shoulder panel on my jacket, which I will build up as I continue to work on my design. I haven’t decided whether or not to join them all up yet – that’s a decision I will make later. You could stitch one large area, working from one side of the jacket if you prefer – the beauty of this project is that you can do whatever works for you. Enjoy the freedom of the project and the time that you take to stitch it!

Watch the tutorial video here!

Share your stitching!

I can’t wait to see your satin stitches this week, so don’t forget to share them with me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or by good old email. Please just get in touch if you have any comments or questions too!

Important stuff

The customised denim jacket project is taken from Colourful Fun Embroidery © Clare Albans, 2020. All rights reserved. Published by White Owl Books. It is for personal use only and may not be reproduced without permission. Thanks!

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Welcome to The Happy Stitch Project! I’m so excited to be launching today – yay! This whole project basically came about when I got stuck in a creative rut a couple of months ago, and I knew that I wanted to come up with something to get me out of it. It was during a period when I felt a bit lost and unmotivated creatively, and that’s never a great place to be in (but trusting in the process is key and I know that this will get me out of it). The last few weeks have been crazy busy (for which I am truly thankful!) but it didn’t leave me much time for being creative, and I felt like I didn’t know what to work on next anyway. Over the last couple of years I’ve come to understand that when I feel a bit lost, learning something new can help to encourage me to get creative again. It always feels like a big kickstart to get me going again, if that makes sense?!

So I decided to go big or go home and take on a year-long project in 2021. I went from feeling lost to feeling hugely motivated and excited before I’d even done a stitch! And I think this is a good sign, so I’m really hoping that it will not only get me going creatively but also encourage you to get involved as well – whether you’ve stitched before or not!

What is The Happy Stitch Project?

So in a nutshell, I am going to be learning (and teaching you!) a new embroidery stitch in every week of 2021. This is a project that you’ll be able to join in with in a way that suits you. It will be something that you can dip in and out of, use either as a refresher or as a way to learn completely new stitches. You’ll get to see all the outtakes of me learning new things along the way too – I really want to show you the full process throughout, whether it goes well or not! I have always done this on my blog and it’s a really important part of how I work creatively. We learn such a lot when things don’t quite go to plan, and I try to embrace this as much as possible. I’d love to encourage you to do the same!

There will be lots going on as part of the project, including:

• Blog posts full of ideas, tips and tricks
• Tutorial videos on YouTube and IGTV
• Free digital patterns for you to try out
• New kits available to purchase throughout the year
• Newsletter subscribers will also receive additional free patterns throughout the year – you can sign up in the footer or via the popup too!

Watch on YouTube!

The first videos are live on YouTube already – yay! You’ll find an introduction to the project below if you’d like to watch me talk about it The first two stitch tutorials are on there (you get a bonus one this week as it’s the first week!), so we’re starting with straight stitch and back stitch. I’ll be writing additional blog posts for these as well, so stay tuned.

The project in more detail

I really want #TheHappyStitchProject to be an exploration of stitching for us all, and something which encourages you to explore hand embroidery a little further. There are a few things that are super important to me, and I wanted to highlight them individually:

Work at your own pace

One of the key things about The Happy Stitch Project is that I want you to work at your own pace. Comparing your speed to other people can take some of the joy out of it, and I want this to be an enjoyable project for you! Try to enjoy the process, however fast or slow your stitching is going. There’s really no rush at all. Also, there isn’t a test at the end so remember that you don’t have to complete each week! Simply dip in and out and take what you need. You might skip a few weeks if you feel like you’ve mastered those stitches already. The content will be available afterwards anyway, so you can always come back later. It’s okay to change your mind!

You don’t have to be an expert

In my book, Colourful Fun Embroidery, I talk about using only a small number of stitches to be create a variety of different pieces. I only use about 5 different ones in my book, which are the stitches I have used for basically all of the projects I have ever stitched, and I’ll let you into a secret…they are actually the only ones I know! That’s right – I wrote a book, an ACTUAL BOOK that I am so so proud of, and I only used 5 stitches. Which firstly goes to show how how versatile hand embroidery is, and secondly that you can produce beautiful pieces without knowing everything there is to know about embroidery. I’m here to remind you that you don’t have to be an expert to get started; you certainly don’t need to be an expert to join in with The Happy Stitch Project. (Also if you haven’t got a copy and you’d like one, you’ll find them here!)

You may wonder why I’m telling you this, in a world where Instagram and social media in general presents us with perfect stitches and expert crafters. Well, I guess what I’m getting at is that this is a learning process for me as well as for lots of you, and that is absolutely okay. Being open to this is a really important part of being creative – we can’t expect to learn anything unless we are open to learning. We can’t become more expert at something until we learn and practise (and practise some more!). Making mistakes is key to this process, as we often learn more from making mistakes – or at least by allowing ourselves to see mistakes as a way to explore and develop creatively. Whatever stage of the creative process you find yourself in, keep going. You’ll get there, just trust in the process! 

There is more than one way of doing things

One of the things that I find frustrating about the creative world is that there can sometimes be this idea that there is only one way to do something. I firmly believe that there are plenty of ways to do things to achieve the same or similar results! You may find that I am teaching you stitches in a different way to how you’ve learnt before – you don’t have to follow what I’m doing, keep doing what you’ve always done if you have a technique that works. Feel free to adapt my methods in a way that suits you – we’re all different and that’s a good thing!

Get involved

This project isn’t just about me learning or teaching you new stitches – I’d love to see what you’re stitching too! Use the hashtag #TheHappyStitchProject and tag me @hellohoorayblog on social media because I would LOVE to see what you create! Please feel free to ask questions as well, as I’m happy to help.

Use what you have

I really want you to be able to make the most of materials and tools that you already have, so raid your fabric stash and see what you can use! I have a huge stash and I’ve been working on trying to use more of it before I buy anything new where I can. But, if you do need some additional supplies then I have loads in my haberdashery. Really excited to say that I have my first fabric available (only in one colour at the moment as we have no space here!) and more will be available soon. So if you do want to treat yourself to new supplies then that’s absolutely okay – no judgement here (and I’ll probably start doing the same haha!).

Are you ready to get started?!

Let me know if you’re joining in! I am so excited to feel inspired by learning new things, and by what you’re all stitching too. If you have any comments or questions, you can leave a comment below or get in touch by email, through Instagram or Facebook. Let’s make 2021 a happy, creative year!

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