Thread Sketching

I finally finished making new pillows for our family room. We are really hard on throw pillows and I end up needing to make new ones every few years. These are my favorite ones yet. I learned a new sewing technique called thread sketching over the holidays and decided to use it on the pillows. My MIL gave me some beautiful fabric to use. It is the Natureology line from E Studios.



It is beautiful, modern and all about nature and birds. So, of course I decided to stitch birds. My inspiration also came from Tara Badcock. LOVE LOVE LOVE her work! Mine doesn't even compare, but it was fun to try.

My first attempts, a partridge and a pear to go on Christmas tea towels:




The finished pillows:




To do it, I iron the shiny side of freezer paper onto water soluable solvy. Which I then run through my printer, photocopying the image I want to sew onto the solvy side. I then peel the solvy off the freezer paper and using an upside down hoop and the darning foot of my sewing machine, do the sketching. Sounds pretty easy, but it took me forever to figure out how to do it!