FREE Saints 'N Stitches Embroidery Designs

There isn't much I can do to help the world right now. But I can offer a little something to the people looking for crafts and projects for their out of school children. These are the downloads I have had for sale on Etsy for a few years now. I'm always surprised when people are still interested in them. You can find them free on Scribd at the links below. Scribd might ask you to create an account with them, but there should not be a charge either for the account or the files. Please let me know if you have any difficulties.

Mary, Queen of Heaven & St. Elizabeth of Hungary

St. Cecilia & St. Rose of Lima

St. Angela Merici & St. Bernadette

St. Rita & St. Teresa of Calcutta 
(original documents still say Blessed... sorry!)

St. Clare & St. Catherine of Alexandria

St. Gianna & St. Genevieve

St. Joan of Arc & St. Teresa of Avila

St. Therese & St. Scholastica

Final Days...

Etsy Shop Update: I am not taking orders after tomorrow, Thursday, December 10th, so these are the last days to place an order if you are looking for an embroidery kit or a completed doll (downloadable patterns will still be available). 

These darling dollies and mittens are already made and ready to ship out today for whoever wants them. 

If you would like a doll made for you (not just a kit) send me a convo and I can create a custom listing for you, but good communication is key to getting the job completed on time so check your Etsy messages frequently or set it up to send you an email when you get a new message. Thanks!

In The Shop :: PRINTABLES!!!

I have been asked many times if I would consider selling my Saints 'N Stitches designs so that the crafty moms who know how to transfer patterns to fabric and like to embroider in their own style might have the chance to work on them without purchasing a kit. My only delay in doing this was the cringeworthy thought of scanning the current working copies of my designs. They are not pretty, people!

I finally made myself sit down and draw up new copies, pristine and clean, along with a little written tutorial on different transfer techniques. These are now available on Etsy! 

With each download, you get three files. One letter-sized copy of the design (two saints per download) right sided, one in a reverse print and a document that details transfer techniques, a simple color guide and pictures of a finished version to use as a reference while making your own.

There are 7 available right now, all female saints including a new design... St. Gianna. I plan to add some boys next week.

Speaking of St. Gianna... you can order her as a kit or purchase this completed doll.  I also have two St. Teresa of Avila dolls for sale as completed dolls. Hopefully, I will have more listed soon. Feel free to convo me if you have a special request.


And for those of you lucky enough to live where there are true fall temperatures, if your hands are starting to get chilly on you, check out Sunshine's fingerless gloves for sale. They are such a beautiful color. If I didn't have large hands and wrists, I'd make her give them to me!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Today, we celebrated with a fruit rainbow served with whipped cream clouds and real Irish soda bread. None of that raisin and caraway stuff here! According to the Society for the Preservation of Irish Soda Bread, once you put raisins in it, it ceases to be soda bread and becomes tea cake. My kids love the real stuff.

My only complaint is that I find it hard to get a good, deep cross in it. Oh well, I guess I just have to try, try again. (My kids are cheering for joy. This is good soda bread!)

Just a quick reminder… if you want to order something from my Etsy shop, you have until Friday to do so. I'm closing up shop on Saturday, March 21st for a few weeks in order to give everything a chance to arrive before Easter and to prepare for Holy Week with my family. Thanks for understanding!

Etsy shop open for Lent!

I am opening up my shop for Lent but I'm not sure I'm going to have any ready made dolls this year. My husband will be traveling and that's when I turn to crafts to keep me sane keep me busy but we'll just have to see how it goes. I am making kits for dolls. You can choose the pattern you want and I will transfer it to a piece of 100% cotton fabric with a temporary ink. My idea is that kids will use these kits to make their own saint dolls and explore a new handicraft. The temporary ink is so important for kids who might find it hard to stay on the line. When their doll is completed, the lines just wash away. But due to the temporary nature of the pattern, it is a little fragile. Environmental conditions and water of any kind can make it fade or wash it away so they should be used within a few months of being purchased.

Each Saints 'N Stitches Pillow Doll Kit comes with a saint pattern on pre-washed cotton fabric, a complimentary backing fabric, full skeins of DMC embroidery floss with enough thread to complete the design and a color chart. I don't provide line by line instructions for each individual design; instead I hope that your children will enjoy using their creativity to decide what to outline and what to fill and follow their own desire to learn new stitches. These kits can also be used by moms to make dolls for their kiddos or by siblings to make dolls for their little brothers and sisters, if they want to.  I am making a limited number of kits available for purchase today but will allow for more orders as I fill the ones ordered first.

Thanks to everyone who has enjoyed these dolls and kits! I hope your children love them.

Etsy Shop Update: Open for Advent

I've been getting a lot of questions about my Etsy shop over the last few weeks. I had planned to open it back up before Advent started, but the ugly, nasty, horrible, terrible nogoodverybad virus that hit our family like a ton of bricks postponed that. So, now I am opening up the shop for the next two weeks taking orders for embroidery kits only. They will be shipped out in time for Christmas.

I do have two completed dolls for sale, Blessed Mother Teresa and St. Cecilia, but I won't be making any more before Christmas, so when they are gone, they are gone!

A Pillow Doll Giveaway!

Apparently, I need better lighting when I embroider. Or glasses. Probably both now that I think about it. It wasn't until I was finishing this doll that I noticed I had accidentally grabbed the variegated red, not the solid color red. See how the left side of his cape is lighter than the right side? Don't worry if you can't. My color blind husband can't either, but I can. Since I don't feel like I can sell this one in the shop, I'm offering it here as a giveaway.

You can enter below using the Rafflecopter entry widget for a chance or multiple chances to win this little Blessed (soon to be Saint) John Paul II Pillow Doll. The giveaway closes Thursday night at 11:59pm so I can get the doll in the mail to the winner on Friday. 

If you don't want to wait until the giveaway closes, there is one JPII doll in the shop right now. I plan on putting the shop on vacation starting April 6th so, if you'd like to place an order for anything over there for Easter, please keep that deadline in mind. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

From the sick couch...

Cupcake is getting better but she still has a ton of gunk. BigBoy was still running a low grade fever this morning but I expect it to be gone completely by tomorrow. Shortcake is now starting to get stuffy and drippy. Whatever this little bug is, it fools you into thinking it's fairly mild for the first two days and then knocks you on your backside for days 3 & 4. Then you get to spend days 5 & 6 wondering who in the world sucker punched your eyes and nose while you slept because they won't stop dripping. Hopefully, as the big kids get it, their more substantial immune systems won't take such a beating.

In other news, I am working on restocking the shop this week. I've already added a St. Bernadette doll and plan to add a Bl. John Paul II. Here is a little sneak peek…

Blessed JPII… not Pope Emeritus Benedict… the halo gives it away, right?

If you want to talk to me about a custom order, I added a "Request Custom Order" button in the left side bar of my Etsy shop.

Day 5 :: Saints 'N Stitches Tutorial {Part 3}

(I apologize for the poor quality of the pictures. My workspace is in my laundry room and these were taken on a very grey and dark day.)

Now that you're little saint is dry and wrinkle free, place him/her face down on the right side of the backing material. 

With a pencil, draw a line around your little saint, kind of a rounded rectangular shape that sits about an inch away from the outside edge. 

Here is a close up.

Stitch along the line you drew leaving open a two inch space at the bottom. 

Here is the opening I usually leave open. 

Trim the edge around. I like to use pinking shears but you don't have to. 

Turn your little saint inside out and press the edges flat, especially the open edge. 

It's much easier to stitch it closed if you have a nice, flat crease there.

Stuff your little saint as much or as little as you want and then pin the opening closed. I like to use an invisible closing seam to close up the opening. You can see a tutorial of that here. It's the same stitch I use to close up my bandana blankets. Once that's closed, you are...

Finished!

Part One : Embroidery Resources

Part Two: Removing the design lines

Day 4 :: Saints 'N Stitches Tutorial {Part 2}

Part One :: Embroidery Resources

How to wash off the water soluble design

 When you are all done and happy with your embroidery, you will want to wash off the blue lines underneath. You could wait until they are all stitched up into dolls and then toss the completed doll in the laundry, but I like to make sure it comes off before then. (I haven't yet had one not come off. )

 Run the design under some gently running cool water. 

 Make sure that the water runs all over the design. When you can't see any blue under your embroidery, gently squeeze the excess water out. 

 Lay out your fabric on a clean towel and roll it up to get all the water out. 

When it's mostly dry, unroll and hang to dry.

When it's completely dry, you can iron all the little wrinkles out.

Tomorrow I'll show you how I turn your embroidered square of fabric into a little pillow doll.

Tips and Resources for learning how to embroider can be found here.

Part Three :: Sewing Your Doll
 

Day 3 :: Saints 'N Stitches "Tutorial" {Part 1}

Tips and Resources

The official tutorial on how to sew one of my pillow dolls is coming tomorrow… this part just has information and resources.

A few people have asked if I am offering any instructions on how to stitch the embroidery kits I'm selling in my Etsy shop. The fact of the matter is that they are each so different and kind of basic (and subject to my whim) that I really can't offer a set of instructions. My goal for these little kits was to offer an easy way for moms and daughters (and sons and fathers if they are so inclined) to have a little fun exploring a new craft with a saintly theme. I used these little designs to introduce my girls to embroidery at a very basic level. We called it "Coloring With Thread". They used a very simple running stitch and 3 strands of thread doubled up and knotted at the bottom. (I always use 2-3 strands doubled and knotted together. It's the way my grandma taught me and Grandma was always right.)

Some of first ones...

If you know the basics of embroidery, you should be able to stitch these little saints easily. You decide what colors you like where. If you want to fill in something or leave it outlined, it's totally your call. If you want to eliminate something completely that I put in the design, just leave it blank and the blue lines will wash away.

If you don't know anything about embroidery, anything at all, then the best place for you to go is Mary Corbett's Needle 'N Thread website. Her how to videos are where I turn to learn new stitches and techniques. I think they are very detailed but also easy to understand. Start with the basics… Running Stitch, Back Stitch, Stem Stitch, Split Stitch. Those are my main go-to stitches. For filling in anything you want filled in, I prefer the Long & Short Stitch (without the shading, I haven't yet done any shading). The important thing is to have fun and be creative!

Tomorrow, I'm going to show you how to deal with the water soluble ink when your design is complete.

Part Two :: Washing Off the Design 

Part Three :: Sewing Your Doll

Day 2 :: A little bit about the shop...

(Psssstttt… I posted more kits last night.)

I've got some tutorials planned for the next few days that have to do with my little saint dolls and the embroidery kits, but today, I just wanted to take a minute to say that in this world of Etsy shops that can turn into huge business opportunities, my vision for my shop is just like my blog... very small. I am not a corporation and my shop is not a business in the traditional sense. It's an overflow of my life here at home.

Right now, I am on an embroidery kick and I found a way to share that with you all. Next month, it might be baby blankets. By the time we hit July in Texas, it might be underwater basket weaving… who knows! I am not looking to market it or promote it or sign up to be anyone's sponsor but thank you for thinking of me and asking. I'm not looking for it to grow any faster than the natural course allows. And it is completely subject to my whim and fancy. I might close it next week, next month or next year. (Just FYI, I plan on putting the shop on vacation starting April 6th until after Easter to make sure that the last weeks of Lent get the attention they deserve.) I see it first and foremost as a hobby and an experiment. (Especially since my Sunshine has been curious about opening her own Etsy shop for a while now.) In fact, this woman's humble shop has long been my inspiration.

I'm not trying to create a brand and I'm not trying to "make it big". I'm trying to be the best wife and mother I can be and still nurture my creativity in my spare time. I will try to take on custom orders as my time and responsibilities allow. You should always feel free to ask, I just reserve the right to say, "not right now". Thank you for respecting that and understanding.

Saints 'N Stitches Pillow Dolls

I've been working on some new designs and testing some of them out, playing around with different stitches and different fill in techniques. I decided to stitch them and put them up in the shop. I'm still working on some others. Here is a sneak peek for you…

In the shop...

"It's like coloring with thread!" That's what my girls said when I first introduced them to basic embroidery. These kits would be great for an older child's Easter basket. Slip it in as it is and then watch them explore a new hobby. For younger children, there is plenty of time before Easter to make one up yourself. (Lent hasn't even started yet!)

Embroidery Kits are now available in the shop: St. Catherine of Alexandria, St. Clare of Assisi, Blessed Mother Teresa, St. Therese the Little Flower, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, St. Josephine Bakhita, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Michael the Archangel, and St. John Bosco. Limited quantities.

Etsy love… check out the new widget!

Psssssst… The widget? It's over there - - - - - - - - - -> My new Etsy store!

Spicy Miss Jessica was asking for favorite Etsy shops last week so I thought I would post some of mine here and see if anyone has more to add.

Please don't hate me when I say I'm done with my Christmas shopping. I am obsessive like that. Sorry. It's just the way God made me. There are maybe a few things to pick up locally but for the most part, the major stuff is taken care of. This year, I tried to find as much as I could first on Etsy. I LOVE ETSY! I know you do too. It's amazing the incredibly talented artists that you can find there.

First stop, The Fig and Thimble:

  

This is the shop run by Kimberlee's children, you know, when they are not publishing novels or professionally illustrating picture books. In their spare time, they make delightful little things like original watercolor bookmarks and medieval hoods to sell.

Next is this sweet little toy shop located in the hill country of Texas, Hill Country Woodcraft:

 

Beautiful toys, baby gifts and personalized too! Can I tell you how much I love their stick horses, especially the ones with colorful yarn hair?! Adorable! You know, the one thing that annoys me about Etsy is that sometimes you find something beautiful and then find out it ships from Lithuania or the Ukraine. Grrrrrr argh. Well, never fear, because Hill Country Woodcraft is located in the great state of Texas and ships, well… from the Texas Hill Country. If you don't know what that is, I'm sorry. So very, very sorry.

But then again, sometimes the Etsy gods show you something so beautiful that you drool over it and your eyes are so thankful to have lighted upon it that you don't care if it's in Ireland because it's so gorgeous you keep going back to look at it and try to study it to see if there is anyway you could even come close to reproducing something so exquisite (you can't)… In fact, you aren't even sure that you want to post a link to it for fear that someone will buy it and you won't be able to gaze upon it anymore. Sigh. Since this is the only listing Ailish has right now in her shop, I suggest you follow this talented lady from Cork, Ireland because when she posts more, you are gonna want to know!

And speaking of following people, if you follow this here little blog, you might also want to follow my brand spanking new Etsy shop that just opened, um… like yesterday. It's called Waltzing Matilda Makes…. So, what does Waltzing Matilda make? Not sure right now, just a little bit of this and a little bit of that. I have no big plans for it immediately. But I like the idea of having a place to offer some extras from the fun we have making over here (quilties, dolls, decorations) and maybe a place for Sunshine to offer some of her hand knitted creations eventually (she's totally stoked about that idea). There are only a couple of little items in there right now but I'm working on a few more. I'd love to know what you think of the shop and what things you might like to see offered there in the future. I make no promises!

Other wonderful Etsy places:
Time Machine Jewelry for your favorite Doctor Who fans!

And these cute little name puzzles by sugargliderwoodworks