A Gnome And A Guinea Pig Walk Into A Bar

Thanks for all the recent comments! You guys always say the nicest things about my little craft projects, which makes me wonder if you need your eyes checked. No, really, it makes me smile big time. And, I totally appreciated the comments about my recent low blood sugar episode. Thank you!

Have you seen Barbara's tutorial on turning an embroidered piece into a lovely needle case? It's a terrific way to use something that might be stained or torn but that you can't bear to part with because it's just too pretty. I knew I couldn't make one the way Barbara did because I don't machine sew and the only bias tape I have is white (boring). But then I heard a little voice inside my head ask why not just blanket stitch the edges together? And, I thought Boy howdy! I am so doing that!

(I swear if the blanket stitch were a person, I would be its biggest stalker.)

Well, I couldn't find the right embroidery to morph into a needle case so I was thinking I should just stitch a little design on some fabric and go from there. I'm about ready to go do that right now. But first, let me show you what I made for my sister last year since I never got around to taking any pictures of it until now.

On one side of the little bag, I embroidered a gnome . . .




. . . and, on the other, his pal, the guinea pig.



Susan chose the patterns, which explains why there's a gnome and a guinea pig. If I had made this for myself, there would have been a puppy on one side and a wombat on the other. And, a picture of Johnny Depp inside.

The gnome pattern was the January 2008 free pattern from Bad Birds. I had stitched him once before and thought he looked like he was wearing a uniform of some kind so this time I got out the crayons and gave him some color. By the way, the current freebie from Andrea Zuill is an elephant on a ball holding an umbrella in his trunk. I love it.

The guinea pig design is from a coloring book that you can find at Dover Publications (possibly this one) but I had saved the image from one of their sampler emails. If you haven't signed up for that by now, you should. You'll receive a weekly email with links to free illustrations, clip art, and stories from a wide variety of their books. Some of the black & white drawings and coloring pages work nicely as embroidery patterns. (At least that's what I tell myself every time I download yet another one even though I know I will most likely never get around to using it except for this one time that I used the guinea pig page.) Register to get the sampler here.