Stitching a Tea Cozy Garden

A few months ago, I (Teri) joined the local chapter of the Embroiderers' Guild of America. Each month at the meetings, an embroidery project is offered; at my first meeting it was a cute little tea cozy, made with buttons. I love tea, and I have a vast collections of buttons, so I gathered some fun buttons and threads and set off on my new adventure. 

I love to challenge myself to learn new stitches or to make them with different threads or applications. For this project, I chose to focus on using Painters Threads and floss by Weeks Dye Works. I had a wonderful time experimenting and just playing, without a real plan. The tea cozy went together pretty quickly, and I think it looks pretty happy sitting on my counter. I had intended to make it as a gift, so it will be a bit difficult to part with it! 

We were given a lovely kit that included the cut pieces of linen, the liner, and the insulating fabric. The butterfly buttons were available for us as well. This is how I created my button-embroidered tea cozy garden.

Choosing the buttons and arranging them was my biggest challenge.
Once I was pleased, I took a picture to follow as a guide.

Stems were lightly drawn with pencil and stitched with a stem stitch or chain stitch.
I used Painters Threads pearl #8, Turner. I then sewed all the buttons on with Weeks Dye Works floss, two strands of Saffron.

From left to right, these are the stitches and threads I used for each flower.

Picot stitch with Weeks Dye Works floss, Grenadine

Pistil stitches with Painters Threads pearl #5, Van Gogh

Colonial knots with Painters Threads pearl #8, Grandma Moses
and lazy daisy stitches with Weeks floss, Grenadine

Lazy daisy petals with Painters Threads metallic braid #4, Grandma Moses;
 ribbon stitch leaves with Painters Threads 7mm ribbon, Turner

 

The bee is made with DMC pearl #12, a bullion knot made with one strand each of black and yellow, with wings of loops made with Painters Threads metallic braid #4, Longan. To see a tutorial on making the bee, read our Garden Gate post by clicking here.

Drizzle stitches with Weeks floss, Autumn Leaves

Colonial knots and fly stitches with Weeks floss, Grenadine

This button is ringed with cast-on stitches that overlap to create the petals,
made with Painters Threads metallic braid #4, Van Gogh.

Left leaf—fishbone stitch, right—stacked fly stitches
Painters Threads pearl #8, Turner

Leaves, left to right: lazy daisy stitch with 7mm ribbon, stacked fly stitches with pearl #8, stacked lazy daisy stitches with Weeks floss, ribbon stitches with 7mm ribbon. Straight stitches with metallic braid #4 makes the flower. (All but floss is Painters Threads.) 

Pekinese stitch with Painters Threads pearl #8, Grandma Moses

Bullion stitches with Painters Threads pearl #5, Van Gogh

I changed the position of the butterfly button from my original plan; it seemed to be more balanced amidst the flowers. And the bees just completed my garden. As I write this, the weather is dreary and damp. I think I will go make some tea! Won't you join me?

We Have a Winner!

We were thrilled to have so many wonderful comments on our Snowflakes for Free! post. Everyone had such nice things to say, and we loved hearing about everyone's favorite holiday songs. 

Congratulations to Debra Young for winning our snowflake kit! 

Debra, please contact us with your mailing address, and we will get the kit right out to you. 

You can find the free pattern for this snowflake on the post Snowflakes for Free!. We hope you enjoy making your own unique versions of this flake. We would LOVE to see your results! Please share your stitched snowflakes with us on our Facebook, Instagram, or Google+ pages!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

  

Snowflakes for Free!

Technically, all "real" snowflakes are free, and sometimes we even have to pay someone to get rid of too many of those free snowflakes. However, today's free snowflake is a pattern! We wanted to give a little holiday gift to our readers, and given the season, we thought a snowflake was appropriate.

This lovely piece of silk, herringbone fabric has been sitting on my (Kara's) shelf waiting for the perfect project, and the creamy wool was a perfect complement to the neutral silk. Throw in some silk ribbon, bugle beads, Weeks hand-dyed pearl cotton, and some vintage buttons, and the project was ready to go. The seam binding was the right shade, but in the end, I decided not to use it.

First, I printed two copies of the pattern; one to look at and trace, and one to cut. Then I cut out the star portion of the pattern, sprayed a little temporary spray adhesive (505) on the back, and then traced my star onto the wool using a grey gel pen. This is the first time I had used spray adhesive on a pattern for a wool project, and I loved how it worked. Once it was traced, I cut out the wool star with some very pointy and sharp scissors to get the little star cutouts. The point of the scissors went right through the wool, making it very easy to get a clean cut.

Next, I stitched the star to the background using one strand of embroidery floss. 

Press and Seal plastic wrap is one of my favorite tools for transferring a design onto wool. I placed a piece of Press and Seal over the uncut pattern, and using my white, roller-ball gel pen, I traced the snowflake portion of the design. Since the embroidery is mostly straight lines, you could probably eyeball it easily enough.

Using the pearl cotton, I stem-stitched the six, straight, snowflake arms that were on the wool. The bugle beads were used for the little, straight, lines off those arms. After that, I used the 4mm, cream silk ribbon to make fly stitches and straight stitches that completed the arms. The final touch was two buttons—one mother of pearl and the other a metal one that I scavenged off of a thrift store sweater.

The completed snowflake

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As I was looking for threads and background for this project, I found another piece of silk in light blue that would give a "cooler" tone to my snowflake. I was looking for some sparkle, when I came across this glittery, variegated, thread in tones of blue.

Because the background was thin, I backed the fabric with a piece of flannel before I began to stitch. This also allowed me to stitch without using a hoop.

There were a few little puckers after the embroidery was done, but those went away with a little bit of steam from the iron on the back of the project.

I didn't have any buttons that would work but I did have quite a few Swarovski crystals left over from my Irish dance, dressmaking days. Voila! A sparkly, snowflake with a totally different look than the one in the neutral palette.

An icier snowflake

Bring on the bling!

 An 8" frame with a 5.5" opening was the perfect size to highlight both snowflakes.

To get the free pattern please click HERE.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all our readers! 

A Perfect Combination

What do a tearoom, an antique shop, and a quilt store have in common? In my (Kara's) mind it would be that they are three of my favorite places, and on a corner in Gulfport, Florida, those three places happen to be right next to each other.

On a recent trip to visit my in-laws, my mother-in-law treated my son's girlfriend and me to lunch at Sweet-tea Celebrations. I do enjoy tearooms, and this one did not disappoint. 

Some of the beautiful giftware available for purchase

A sweet crocheted teapot

It was tastefully decorated without being overdone, and the food was delicious. We chose to eat lunch instead of having the high tea, but we saw one go by and it looked spectacular!

Such a beautifully presented plate!

Lovely company for tea

The Boulevard Shoppe and Garden (antique store) was connected to the tearoom by a courtyard, so after our lunch, we meandered over to see if we could find any treasures. I have been on a quest for an antique chatelaine, so that was my first question to the salesperson. She didn't think that there were any to be found but directed me to a specific case and encouraged me to dig around.

A case of treasures

But alas, as is usually the case, there were none there, and my search continues. All was not lost though, as I found a beautifully embroidered goldenrod panel stitched in what appears to be silk.

So many French knots!

I love the contrast with the black background

I also found a set of lovely, hand-etched, mother-of-pearl buttons. These will look lovely worked into my next crazy quilt project.

Mother-of-pearl has so many color variations

This red really stands out

The next room contained quite a few beautiful, vintage linens. I was tempted to add to my embroidered pillow case and tea-towel collection, but I exercised some restraint.

A selection of linens

This flowerpot quilt was in great condition and had a wide variety of flowers. 

Pretty Pansies

In one of the rooms I found this exquisite cross-stitch sampler dated 1810. It was in excellent condition, and I might have snatched it up if the budget had allowed.

A sampler to be proud of

The Boulevard Shoppe and Garden had a nice variety of items, and I didn't even make it out to the courtyard to check out the garden items they had. This will definitely be a "must-stop" the next time I am in the area.

To complete the perfect shopping afternoon, Ruthie and I walked across the street to a lovely little quilt shop called Fabric Smart. Karen Donnelly had been selling fabric online for some time when circumstances changed and she decided to open a storefront.

 

Karen and her shop

While she still has her online store, her shop has a broad and beautiful selection of fabrics, as well as some rare and hard-to-find fabrics. Supporting our local quilt shops is important, and I was happy to hear from Karen that business is good and growing.

If you are in the area, it is worth a stop, and if you'd like to know more about Karen's class offerings just email her at info@fabric-smart.com.

What a fun afternoon we had in all three places! Finding this perfect combination of some of my favorite interests, at an all-in-one walkable location, made me feel like I had hit the jackpot. Do you have special places like these where you live? Tell us all about it, so others who might be in your area may enjoy them as well.