Tea Bag Envelopes

unikatissima Tea Bag Envelopes

I’m collecting nearly everything (and that’s how it looks here, too ;-)) and from now on I will collect used tea bags, too, to make beautiful envelopes from.
I’m really curious about it. ;-))
On the photo you see my Rooibosh tea bags. I find that the Rooibosh tea gives the most beautiful colour, a very warm red-brown :)

By the way it must look great, too, if the tea bags are sewn together and/or if they are embellished after assembly, e.g. by embroidering, painting or stamping them.


Links:
Recycling Tea Bags into Art Projects: How to Create Tea Bag Envelopes

“Tea Ceremony” – sewn tea bags
(via Wewer Keohane)
Sas Colby Teabag Art Discourse – stamped tea bags
T-Bag – Tea Bag Designs – painted tea bags

Here at unikatissima: Paper Crazy Quilt – embroidered paper

Chainstitch Card

unikatissima Chainstitch Card

I just wanted to show once more how beautiful embroidery on paper and cardboard can be ;-)

Here I cut a beautiful blue patterned square from a magazine and glued on white cardboard.
Then I drew very faint curved lines with a pencil, pricked holes along the lines and stitched them with a chain stitch.
Looks fine, doesn’t it?

I find though that the chain stitch looks much better on straight lines or wide curves than on sharp turns (it ‘inclines’ somewhat), that’s something one could pay attention to when drawing the lines.


Links:
Instruction for chain stitch

Here at unikatissima: Embroidered Matisse Cushion

What Can You Do With Filet Crochet/Cross Stitch Embroidery Charts?

unikatissima Two-coloured Chart (click to enlarge)

Recently something took me and I thought that you can use those two-coloured charts which are usually associated with filet crochet or cross stitch for a loooot of other techniques, too.
I had this idea already before, in my entries about intarsia knitting, the cross stitch heart, the beaded square stitch heart and the polymer clay letter cane.

On the photo you see some letters worked in different techniques (I’m working on letter charts at the moment ;-)):
'u' - Knit-Purl Knitting, each X is a purl stitch
'n' - Fair Isle Knitting, each X is a white stitch
'i' - Sequins Embroidery, each X is a sequin
'k' - Tapestry Crochet, each X is a white stitch
'a' - Filet Crochet, each X is a filled filet crochet square
't' - Cross Stitch Embroidery on paper, each X is a black cross stitch
'i' - Loom Beading, each X is a black bead
's' - Stamping with square stamps, each X is a black square stamp
's' - Illusion Knitting, each X is a black stitch over two rows
'i' - Crochet Yoyo’s, each X is a white crochet circle from dc’s
'm' - Inverted Filet Crochet, each X is a empty filet crochet square
'a' - Macramée/Friendship Bracelet, each X is a white knot

But then I came up with more techniques and if you still have more ideas I’d be glad if you wrote a comment about.
I added for every technique what would be a square of the chart.
Please remember: Not all ‘units’ are square so that the result can look quite different from the chart!

Knitting

Crochet

  • Tapestry Crochet – 1 stitch
  • Filet Crochet – 1 filet square (cross = filled square)
  • Inverted Filet Crochet – 1 filet square (cross = empty square)
  • Crochet Yoyo’s – 1 Crochet Yoyo, viz. a crochet circle from dc’s

Beading

Embroidery

Knotting

Weaving

Sewing

  • Patchwork/Quilting – e.g. 1 patchwork square
  • Yoyo’s – 1 Yoyo
  • Fabric Origami – 1 fabric origami square

Other

By the way I found an blog entry of an embroiderer who thought about the same subject and has more ideas.


Links:
Double Knitting
Picture for sequin embroidery (scroll down to about the middle)
Description of French Knot
Heather’s Friendship Bracelets – Alphabet Patterns
Geometric stitching
Google image search result for ‘yoyo blanket’
Google image search result for ‘ministeck’

Here at unikatissima:
Celtic Cross Stitch Generator
Heart Template (at Beaded Square Stitch Heart)

Patchwork Knitting
Bead Knitting
Illusion knit

Tapestry Crochet
Beautiful Filet Crochet Patterns

Loom Woven Bead Bracelet
Beaded Square Stitch Heart
Bead Knitting
Freeform Bead Embroidery
Bead embroidered Paisleys

Friendship Bracelet
Crazy Daisies
Crazy Daisies II

Tablet or Card Weaving

YoYo Pin
Fabric Origami

Mosaic Table Light (Glass Paint)
Polymer Clay Letter Cane
Mosaic from Plaster
Eraser Stamps

Cross Stitch Heart

unikatissima Cross Stitch Heart

Valentine’s Day makes everything more heart-ily somehow ;-))
Besides I wanted to show what you can do else with the heart template of the day before yesterday (Beaded Square Stitch Heart), viz. a really nice cross stitch heart.
I didn’t have any Aida fabric or similar, besides I always prefer to embroider on paper or fine cardboard ;-)
I therefore glued some plain gift wrap paper on fine cardboard, pre-pricked the holes (which you should always do when embroidering on paper) and embroidered my heart with metallic sewing threads (instructions on how to embroider the cross stitch see links below).
Subsequently I connected the border holes, cut the cardboard into a nicer shape and glued it on a greeting card.
I really like it ;-)

 

unikatissima Heart Chart Click picture to enlarge and then simply print.

 


Links:
Kids Stitch Diagrams and Instructions ­ Part I
Tutorial moved to: Kids Stitch Diagrams and Instructions ­ Part I => scroll down
At Embroiderers’ Guild: Cross Stitch
What else you can do with cross stitches (at Embroiderers’ Guild also):
Pattern Making with Cross Stitch

Flinkhands Kreuzstichanleitung (German)

At crossstitch.about.com: About Aida fabric
At Wikipedia: Stramin (German)

Here at unikatissima: entries with the words ’embroidery on paper’,
especially the Paper Crazy Quilt and the Crazy Quilt Photo Frame

Magazine Embroidery Hoop

unikatissima Magazine Embroidery Hoop

Once I’ve seen somewhere (but I don’t remember, where ;-() how somebody made an embroidery hoop from magazine paper.
On the photo you see how it looks. I used quite stiff advertising paper and the hoop became very robust.
This way I can make fast and cheap embroidery hoops in different sizes :)

Material:

  • Paper, e.g. advertising paper
    It should be strong and may not stain(!) the fabric.
  • Log or dowel
    I used a 8mm knitting needle
  • Tape
  • Drinking glass or the like with the required diameter

That’s what you do:
unikatissima Magazine Embroidery Hoop Select appropriate paper sheets.

 

unikatissima Magazine Embroidery Hoop Roll and fold the paper sheets to paper strips of equal width (see tutorial here).

 

unikatissima Magazine Embroidery Hoop Coil one paper strip firm around the glass and fix with tape.

 

unikatissima Magazine Embroidery Hoop Tape the hoop very well.

 

unikatissima Magazine Embroidery Hoop Slip the hoop over the glass again and coil the second strip of paper very firmly around the first hoop, tape very well, too.

 

unikatissima Magazine Embroidery Hoop These are both hoops, one can be slipped exactly over the other.

 

unikatissima Magazine Embroidery Hoop Put the fabric into the embroidery hoop and embroider.
I didn’t iron the fabric, but it’s firmly tightened into the hoop.

 

unikatissima Magazine Embroidery Hoop That’s the way everything looks from the backside.

 

Have fun with your embroidery :)


Links:
Here at unikatissima: Folded Paper Strips of Equal Width

Crazy Quilt Photo Frame

Crazy Quilt Photo Frame

Once I wanted to make a photo frame for a friend. There are so many ways to do this, but then I got an idea I still find great ;-))

 

Crazy Quilt Photo Frame I used a simple glass frame as seen on the second photo that I already had at home and glued a kind of Paper Crazy Quilt with two windows for the photos onto the glass.
I used flower photos from an ad as paper and the only embroidery stitches I used where the zigzag stitches, because I wanted it to be simple.

 


Links:
Here at unikatissima:
Paper Crazy Quilt

Bargello

Bargello

While working with polymer clay I found a tutorial on how-to make items with a Bargello-look.

Then I made a little research to know what Bargello is (links see below):
It seems, that the first ‘Bargello craft’ was embroidery, but then the quilters worked Bargello-looking quilts, the polymer clay people made those items with a Bargello-look and the stampers and cardmaking people use this technique on paper. And I made my Bargello digitally as you can see on the picture ;-)
What a versatile technique ;-)


Links:
Embroidery:
Wikipedia: English entry for ‘Bargello’

Defining Bargello

How-to make Bargello needlework:
Bargello Work
Bargello needlepoint

Quilting:
How To Make Bargello Quilt

Polymer Clay:
Tutorial on how-to make items with a Bargello-look
Bargello Swap
Tutorial on how to make a Bargello pattern as cane and as sheet

Stamped Paper:
Bargello (English) (with explaining pictures)

Flexagons

Flexagon Flexagon Flexagon Flexagon

Flexagons a quite interesting things: a kind of card with four sides, and you can flip from one side to the other, back and forth.
But to better understand what Flexagons are, how they work and how you can make one for yourself take a look at the Flexagon page.
On the photos you see the four pages of my first (and up until now last) flexagon. (Click on thumbnails to see the photos.)
It doesn’t work so well, because it is to bulky:
I made them from cardboard to make them lasting longer, glued then cotton on to the cardboard, because I thought that fabric would bend better if you flip them over and over and then glued on the pieces of my hand-embroidered and tape-transfered collages on the appropriate places.
Next time I will see to it that they get slender.
But anyhow: I love my flexagon ;-))


Links:
Flexagons

And if you want to embroider your collages:
English Embroidery Stitch DiagramsDeutsche Stickstichbeschreibungen
(see also Paper Crazy Quilt)

If you want to know more about image transfers
Easy Photo Transfers (different techniques)
Image Transfer
Packing Tape Image Transfers
(see also Artist Book)

Here at unikatissima:
Paper Crazy Quilt
Artist Book

Paper Crazy Quilt

Paper Crazy Quilt

I love Crazy Quilts, because it is a kind of Freeform work, but I don’t like sewing. So I began to make my quilts on and with paper.
On the photo you see a card I made with this technique.
I didn’t only embroider the seams but I also used some fancy stitches like French Knots e.g. (the red dots on the photo) onto the surfaces.

To make your own Paper Crazy Quilt, find matching papers and cut them into pieces. On the photo I used rectangles, but the typical Crazy Quilt distribution is also beautiful (here you can find some lovely blocks here you can find some lovely blocks).
Glue the collage on thin paper and then begin embroidering (carefully!) as if it was a real Crazy Quilt (here is an online class for Crazy Quilts).
To finish you glue or embroider your Paper Crazy Quilt on cardboard.


Links:
Crazy Quilt blocks
Tutorial moved to: Crazy Quilt blocks

Online class for Crazy Quilts

English Embroidery Stitch Diagrams
Deutsche Stickstichbeschreibungen

French knots (Knötchenstiche) (English)
French knots (Knötchenstiche) (German)