We had agreed to be frugal for this year's birthday gifts since we both just bought super fancy DSLR cameras. I normally make him something handmade to accompany his birthday and Christmas gifts, so this year I decided to only go homemade.
One day I stumbled across these neato Scrabble pillows on Etsy, and I decided that I was somehow going to incorporate Scrabble tiles.
Nick is a big Scrabble fan and is pretty darn good at it. In a two person game, his highest score ever was in the upper 500s. I'm happy if I break 100. I knew he would never forgive me if I dipped into the tiles from our Scrabble game, so I took to the internet to find out where I could get some tiles without having to buy a whole game. Turns out you can get them at Michaels, but I went over to Ebay instead for a discounted price. Before I ordered I counted the quantities of letters I would need, and I realized that I needed to get two sets of letters, since I had one too many H's. I hot glued the tiles onto a piece of linen that I had in my scrap bag.
The quote is from one of our favorite songs by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes. It's so happy! One of our friends said it made her want to frolic through a field of daisies, which is spot on.
I embroidered our home state of Pennsylvania around it and marked where we live with a star. It's a pretty simple gift but I love it. I'm happy to say that Nick loves it too! We hung it up in our foyer next to an awesome key doorknocker that Nick's sister gave us for Christmas the year we moved into our house.
Nick's gift is the first item on what will become the embroidery wall. Picture something like this frame wall, but embroideries instead.
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Our embroidery wall is going to go up our stairwell, to the right of Nick's gift.
The second item for our embroidery wall will be the Silly Birds. I just have to get my act together and finish framing them. Otherwise, I envision a mix of embroideries on the wall, including a Mr. Fox of our own. I also have my eye on a few patterns from ThisTinyExistence, including this awesome armchair. My parents have an armchair that is pretty much identical to that chair, except that it's blue. He is waiting in their house for us to have a big enough house to adopt him. One day!
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Do you have any favorite embroidery patterns?
This is such a clever and unique present idea, as is the embroidery wall. Other than straight stitching for my Alabama Swing Skirt (currently a work in proogress) I must confess I hardly ever hand sew or embroider... but there's always time to learn!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Stitch Parade! I absolutely love hand embroidering. Although I love sewing, there's something so quaint about creating something without needing any electricity or fancy gadgets. My first glimpse into hand embroidery was through Jenny Hart and Sublime Stitching (http://www.sublimestitching.com/). I have her book Embroidered Effects and it's a great resource, plus it includes a bunch of great patterns.
ReplyDeleteSuper cute! I love that song, too!
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