I wish I was in fabulous Las Vegas..

I can't really remember when I decided I was to 'do' embroidery but it was about 6 weeks ago, when, sat at home drunk one evening I came across the divine Sublime Stitching website which had exactly the kind of modern embroidery that I wanted to have a go at.

To google 'embroidery patterns' is akin to sticking your head in a candy floss machine whilst being forcefed lemon bonbons. So much pink! So many kittens! So many 'I wuvs youse'. From the sickly to the surreal, there's a blog waiting to be written just to document them:

The people who like those kind of designs are the same kind of people who email on 3mb PowerPoint presentations to you containing poems about how you're a 'special friend.'

Sublime Stitching also has very clear and easy to follow diagrams to help you learn the basic stitches. I am not a natural at 'crafting' but I even managed to do a French knot first time which is somewhat miraculous. I decided my first project would be to embroider some material and mount it onto a diary. My friend Claire had a birthday coming up and she went to Vegas in September, so I'd figure I'd do her a Vegas themed diary..

Here are my initial drawings:

Going over in pen:

Then tracing text etc:

I had found a natty litle fabric transfer pencil in Manchester, where you draw what you want, then you iron the drawing onto the fabric. Once it's on it will then wash out. Well, I've never bought a product that rails against its intended purpose quite so vehemently. Not only did it fail to transfer at all despite numerous efforts and lots of swearing on my part, the bits that did make the giant leap onto the fabric then refused to wash off (even with my Vanish Oxyaction! Bloody cheek of it!). This left me a bit downhearted but I have developed a revolutionary new tracing system called Rushtrace™ whereby I stick the paper in the embroidery hoop behind the fabric, download a free 'Torch' app on my iPhone and stick my phone under the bit I'm tracing with the torch on. Allakasam, a lightbox on the cheap.

I was/am still waiting for my 'Embroidery Starter Kit' from Sublime Stitching (flaming postal strike) and I was running out of time so I visited the John Lewis Haberdashery section (Basically porn for middle aged women and ME). Last Sunday was a 10-hour hardcore sesh of sewing. I had some serious ground to cover! This was my first attempt at embroidery though, so I was a bit shit to begin with. Exhibit 1 of shite (unpicked 30 mins later):

Steadily improving:

Most of the text is combination of back stitch and chain stitch (for the loops in the 'I' and 'a') done using a single thread, the cloud is chain stitch and the Vegas yellow 'lights' are French Knots. The table is a split stitch with 2 strands of grey and 2 strands of black thread. The raised effect as seen on the clock can be achieved by sewing a split stitch in a circle, then sewing over the top. This is explained much better here. I finally finished at 9:15pm, ready to get out of my pyjamas and start the day. Erm.

I managed to finish the text the next evening, and was amazed there were no major cock ups.

The next tricky bit was mounting it onto the diary. After googling it countless times I reckoned I had a fair chance of doing it, but was still really nervous. In the end, I cut 1" from the edge, and started using copious amounts of 'Sew Simple' glue to stick the fabric on (probably too much, in hindsight). I marked where the spine was, cut to the diary edge and stuck those strips down separately.

This is to allow the fabric to move around the spine when it's opening and closing - very inportant! In all the tutorials I'd read on the internet people had glued the entire fabric (bar the spine) to the book, but I was worried about discolouring the fabric (plus the glue stunk to high heaven). I needn't have worried, gluing the edges was absolutely fine.

Nearly there! Left it overnight to dry.

The last bit to do was to cover up my messy edges. In the future I might just sew the covers, but until Santa brings me a sewing machine I'll have to wait! I found this gorgeous hand-printed paper in Paperchase, not cheap though so I'm using it sparingly!

One more day to dry thoroughly and voilà! One fab diary cover ready to be a pressie.

[Edit: My boyfriend has reminded me that he was the one who actually came up with the patented Rushtrace™ system. Hereafter it will now be known as Buftrace™]

In an effort to motivate myself to complete all the stuff I have half-created (scarves, embroidered thingymajigs), I've created this blog to document my progress (this will be useful when I enter the scary world of dressmaking in the New Year).