Embroidered Birthday Card

Crochet. Done that.
Knit. Done that.
Cross stitch. Done that.
Sewing. Done that.

Embroidery....... Perhaps I've done it once or twice eons ago..??? Or was that cross stitch????? But anyway, embroidery is pretty much an untouched territory for me. Was tempted to play with it after looking at the really beautiful Japanese embroideries from a book I'd borrowed from the library. But alas, I didn't even start trying...

...Until a few days ago, after browsing through a number of really interesting mod-looking embroidered designs, an idea struck me. It'll be really cool to make an embroidered birthday card!

Original embroidery tools don't come cheap, so I just make do with some simple replacements... Got a grey-white cotton fat-quarter, a cheap transfer pencil and a cheapo hoop from Golden Dragon; got some DMC cross-stitch threads and 2 needles quite cheaply from a small craft store at Bukit Merah central (very near workplace... hahaha..); and got a piece of tracing paper from my own kitchen!

I got a ready-to-trace pattern from pimpstitch.com. It's a really cute design, suitable for a girl's birthday! Initially, I used the transfer pencil to trace out the design... But idiotic me forgot to flip the image...! Too lazy to re-do and reprint the image, I just shaded the back of the tracing paper (with the design already traced by the transfer pencil) pretty hard with a normal pencil, and re-traced that image onto the cut cotton fabric, hoping that the shaded back could transfer the image well enough for me to see...

Well, it's not too bad, but the image just got lighter everytime my hand brushed against the fabric while embroidering... So much so that the image of the kitten became barely visible... == which explains its wonkiness..... =P

To finish off the embroidered piece, I folded the edges of the fabric, and did a running stitch along them. After which, I pasted the finished piece on a card stock, complete with a thread ribbon. ^.^

Excuse the wonky kitten..... ><