You voted for it so here it is! the Sunset Orca has been brought back from the halls of retired to designs to take up permanent residence as a free pattern right here

Thank you to all of my lovely Purple Rose Stitchers who cast their votes on which design to bring back via my newsletter last week, I couldn’t have decided without you!

A mini sampler pattern from a recent workshop!

I have written out exactly how to complete it, stitch by stitch.

As you work through this design, keep looking at the pattern grid and try to get the hang of counting it from there and then checking my instructions to see if you’re on track…

Whenever you’re starting a new hobby, it can be hard to know where to look for all those helpful bit of wisdom that just make it… click!

Recently I asked my Purple Rose Stitchers:

What embroidery advice do you wish you’d known sooner?

There were some fantastic responses, and so many tips I wouldn’t have thought of!

I want to start this post by saying that you absolutely do not have to keep the back of your embroideries neat if you don’t want to!
In fact I very rarely take the time to keep the back of my stitching neat

However this was highly requested and on those occasions when I do like to keep my work tidy, this is how I do it!

There are many ways to create embroidered patches to sew onto clothes, bags etc

In this post I’m going to show you how to turn an existing piece of embroidery into a patch.

I like this method as it means that you can stitch your embroidery normally on whatever fabric you want, in your hoop, and don’t have to decided if you want it to be patch till you are done!

This is something that I know a lot of people struggle with.

It’s hard to know where to start sometimes, and even harder to know if what you’ve created looks right!

I’m going to take you through the steps I use to create my designs before I even start stitching:

• Looking for inspiration images

• Drawing the elements of the design

• Playing with composition

• Thinking about colours

Recently I asked my Instagram followers two questions:

What piece of stitching advice do you wish you knew sooner?

What is the best piece of advice you can offer other stitchers?

I’m going to go through some of the best answers with you and explain them a little more where possible. (That instagram question box has a rather limited answer space!)

I hope that If you are new to stitching, or are experienced but willing to take advice and try new things, that some of these responses will be useful to you!

There are many ways to finish your hoop but I’m going to talk you through my preferred method of sewing a circle of felt to the back of the hoop

One of the difficulties of working on a square grid as you do with counted embroidery such as Blackwork is creating those smooth curves and circles that some designs just need.

I’m going to explain a little about why circles are so difficult and a few things I think its useful to know about this shape before trying to stitch it.

I’ve also put together some of the tips I have for getting a smooth curved edge to help you create your own designs!