Embroidery Wall Art – mixing it up with beautiful threads and fine wire

Mixing the medium is fast becoming my favourite way to craft at The Little House. And although my efforts are still naïve in comparison to the more accomplished mixed media artists out there, I have realised over time, I am thoroughly enjoying learning this craft. And by the way, I don’t tend to any more. Compare my work to others I mean. What’s the point? Surely if we all created the same art, there would be little of interest for us all to see? Today, once again inspired by a great many creatives, I am mixing two of my current favourite crafting materials together to create a special piece to live at Belle’s which I hope will inspire you to create something similar. By working with embroidery thread and wire, I am showing you today how to create your own unique embroidery wall art. Do join me to see mine…

I recently chatted with one talented lady on Instagram and declared I am not sure which part of the crafting journey I find most exciting, the planning of the project or the end result. Especially for me, when it’s embroidery: I begin with a vague notion of what the finished piece should look like yet since I am still so new to the craft, I tend not to pin my hopes on anything too concrete. For this week’s embroidery wall art, I knew I wanted a nod to our Cottage Garden yet it wasn’t so important to get the likeness spot on; I have enough photos to serve that purpose. And as a great many of my craft projects are for gifts these days and thereby accompanied with the self-imposed pressure of perfection, I was looking forward to simply enjoying this piece, intended only for me.

The base for my embroidery wall art was a piece of soft white linen already hemmed for such a craft. And anything else you see in the next two photos is inexpensive and usually a preloved item. Nothing has cost the earth and everything is interchangeable for your own particular piece.

I recently added this book to my wish list after coming across it on Pinterest. Do you have it? If you do, I’d love to know your thoughts. The cover alone captured me and I’m unsure if the author has in fact used wire or thread for her bird although I knew at once, wire would be quite in keeping for my craft. I used this wire and fiddly though it was to make, I repeated the bending and twisting process a second time until I had a pair of birds I was pleased with. Mr M bought me this set which includes a useful pair of teeny round nose pliers which I recommend if you are starting out on a wire art journey.

The handmade paper I used was gifted to me last year and you may remember I used it in this post and had some left over which worked perfectly as an anchor for the rest of the fabrics to sit and grow upon for my cottage garden art. Pay particular attention to the crumpled and creased end result when using fragile paper like this. The finish appeals to my style; if your aim is for a crisper, neater finish, you might instead use cardstock or perhaps a stiffer fabric.

I used my lovely old typewriter for my wall embroidery art. You could use mini stamps or even write your own title or message if your handwriting is quite beautiful. Or there are many free fonts available on your computer which might work for your design and even simply tearing or cutting your words from a pretty magazine can look extremely effective. And then a sweetie shop moment occurred as I spent a long while working my way through endless boxes and baskets of vintage fabric until I found quite the right pieces for my wall embroidery art. A scrap of lace, a snip of vintage quilt and a torn strip of fragile cotton were all I needed.

I used my machine and its various stitches to attach much of the main fabrics to my linen base and later additions you will see as we progress, were fixed in place by simple hand stitches. Of course, hand stitching all your trimmings would be perfectly appropriate too. I left the top of my quilt scrap unstitched at this stage, since I wished to hide tail ends of wire and the roots of grass and flowers, such that they might appear to be growing from the ground.

I determined where my birds would rest in the cottage garden and fixed their bodies in place first with white cotton, replacing later with a preferred black thread and I used a length of the wire to hook simply over the bird and tuck safely behind the vintage quilt piece, fastening at the base with a few simple over stitches. I procrastinated as to whether the long wire was indeed necessary however without, the birds looked simply plonked thus the wire stayed. I do think a more accomplished stitcher might appear to have their birds fly or even hover, somehow.

And for the rest of my embroidered wall art, I flitted between grass and flower stitches with a variety of green floss for grasses and stalks and a selection of appropriate floral shades for summer blooms. If a space looked too empty, I simply filled with more foliage. No more than four hand stitches are used in my wall embroidery art: stem stitch, French knot, the occasional back stitch and a simple running stitch in various lengths. If you don’t already have it, this beautiful book written by my dear friend has all the stitches in you will need. Sometimes I used single thread, on other occasions I doubled up; everything used came from bric-a-brac sales, emporiums and of course my favourite charity shops.

What a happy project this was. Picking it up and putting it down for evenings on end whilst it grew and blossomed…

Until I was completely happy with my interpretation of Belle’s Cottage Garden just as I wanted it to be.

I fashioned a hanger similar to those I made here from rusty wire and turned the top of the linen over, securing in place with a simple machine running stitch, again hand stitching would look pretty too. My final touch was to add a rag ribbon with a few dried flower heads from Belle’s Cottage Garden and there, what do you think? Could you try something similar yourself? Do you have a favourite spot in your home or garden you could interpret in your own way and paint just for you with a needle and thread?    

My wall embroidery art has not quite made it onto Belle’s wall, so busy have our weekends been of late.  Keep a close watch on my Instagram account and indeed my Pinterest account to see the finished piece in situ in the coming weeks.

And now, you get a little break from me next week as I continue work behind the scenes on an extremely exciting new collaboration which needs my full focus. I will be sharing all with you very soon and I feel sure you will be just as excited as I, when you know more. For now though, I leave you with this thought: I believe the enjoyment I experienced from this week’s craft project must have come quite simply from creating for pleasures sake, with no real expectation for an outcome. I hope you are able to enjoy a few creative moments just like this in the coming weeks too. Until next time…x