Come With Us! to see a new embroidery pattern...

Here it is - my new embroidery pattern! The boy bunny has found something to show the girl bunny, and you can tell she's really excited about it! What could it be... a pretty little beetle, or a cloud shaped like a dinosaur, or even a new picture which he's just drawn for her?

You can get this embroidery pattern from my Etsy shop: Joey's Dream Garden.

I've got lots of ideas for other patterns (mostly involving bunnies, of course!), so watch this space...

Best wishes

Joey x

New Embroidery Pattern... Sneaky Peek!

I've finished designing and embroidering my second embroidery pattern PDF, so I thought I'd share a bit of the process I went through with you, and you get to see a preview at the same time!

The first picture shows a couple of sketches, the one on the left is a preliminary drawing to establish the position of the bodies and limbs, to suggest a feeling of movement and balance. I referred to a photo from a magazine; it was a picture of a boy and girl half-running, holding hands with their mum who was in the middle. I missed out the woman and just concentrated on the two children. The drawing on the right is the “finished” sketch, which is still fairly rough, and from this I traced the final line drawing which I scanned in (thanks Claire for use of your scanner!)

The second photo shows a few of the steps (but not all! I need to remember to keep taking photos, but I get distracted...) I went through to make the finished embroidery (which will be revealed in the next couple of days – watch this space!).

The pictures explained: (1) Starting the embroidery – close-up of stem stitch around outline of face, (2) continuing the stem stitch, (3) sewing the split-stitch of the inner ears and (4) almost finished the first bunny...

So, what do you think so far?

Stay tuned to see the finished embroidery (hopefully) tomorrow!
Joey x

Meomi's Olympics!

"Dress Rehearsal" by MEOMI

For someone who isn't particularly into sport, it's remarkable that I can get mesmerized by the Winter Olympics, like half-pipe snowboarding, speed skating, ski jumping or luge etc etc (but NOT curling)... but it's GREAT!! It's the same with the Summer Olympics... I loved watching the last Olympics in Beijing, and to top it off, they had a bunch of really pretty mascots! They were called "Fuwa" (good luck dolls, or "friendlies" - awww!) and were designed by Han Meilin, a famous Chinese artist.

And for this Winter Olympics, there's even more super-cute mascots! Here they are:


The Vancouver Winter Olympics mascots were designed by the fabby illustration couple Vicki Wong and Michael Murphy, who go by the collective name Meomi. I didn't realise until very recently though, that they've illustrated a series of children's picture-books called Octonauts.

Link to Meomi's site: http://www.meomi.com/
Link to the Octonauts site: http://www.octonauts.com/

Here's some pictures from their book, “The Octonauts and the Sea of Shade”. I love Meomi's sleek, colourful and cute style and the amount of detail they put into their pictures.

The cover which attracted me...

Look at the cute endpaper design!

It's a noisy world at the bottom of the ocean.

Not all Olympics mascots are so cute (there's some real abominations), but another particularly cute mascot was designed for the 1980 Moscow Olympics, a little bear called Misha, designed by the Russian children's book illustrator Victor Chizhikov.

A few years ago, an odd little shop called something like “Russian Cultural Centre” opened on Commercial Street in Sheffield. It was open for only a few months and because I was a bit nervous of going in to have a look around, I never did. I do regret that now. However they did have a Misha ceramic ornament in the window which Mathew really wanted, and the worse thing was, when they closed the shop they left it behind, all alone and gathering dust when it could have been warm and loved in our house! I hope that someone claimed it and is at this moment cherishing it.

Have fun!

Joey x

Happy New Year of The (Little) Tiger!

Oi!!!

It's ME, Little Tiger, as IF you didn't know, ya bloomin' idiot!! And because I'm so POPULAR and LOVED by EVERYONE, they've made it MY year starting TODAY, called "YEAR OF THE LITTLE TIGER"!!

So to make you all VERY HAPPY and so you can all CONGRATULATE me on me being WONDERFUL in every aspect, I've taken over Joey's blog, and put up a GOOD post for a change!!

I've seen that lots of very CREATIVE and CLEVER people on Etsy have been celebrating ME, LITTLE TIGER and made lots of things with ME on... which I know they are going to bring to me IN PERSON (as it's Sunday and the postie doesn't work on Sundays – which is SO lazy, the bloomin' IDIOT!!) so I'll be waiting by the back door for all the GIFTS! Form an orderly queue, ya bloomin' idiots!!

Anyway, I've decided that as a treat, I'm going to show you what I'M going to GET!
By the way, the BEAUTEOUS picture at the top of the page is me in the snow. But I'm NOT cold because I'M AS HARD AS NAILS!!

Year of the Tiger Kitty calendar by novarhyme - like me, very cute.

New Year Tiger 2010 - Print by Tavisha - a very handsome and fierce tiger, just like me.

Happy New Year Tiger Patchwork Doll Japanese craft kit by MeMe Craftwork - all the lovely ladies like this little tyke. It's a problem I have as well... something that us SUPERSTARS just have to get used to...


Year of the Tiger archival print by Betsy Thompson Studio - a very handsome tiger, but if it was ME, I'd be getting a PIGGY-BACK from HER!! What a cheek.

year of the tiger by Dutch Door - ME, doing a very skilful dance through some beautiful flowers. I look EXTREMELY HANDSOME, don't you think??!

And if you DIDN'T like this FANTASTIC post (I can't IMAGINE how you couldn't) then you're an IDIOT!!

Best wishes,
Little Tiger xxxxxxxx

Bunnies in Love - PDF Embroidery Pattern

Hi!

It's the first sunny day for a long time here in Sheffield, UK. About time too! Sunshine really lifts my mood & makes me feel happy! Spring might be coming along soon, I hope so... and as they say, "in spring a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of love..." hee hee!

So the embroidery pattern I've just created has a love-bunnies theme! This time I've actually embroidered it to show you what it may look like, if you have a go too. You can get the embroidery pattern from my Etsy shop: Joey's Dream Garden.

Ahh, a couple of bunnies who are very much in love... bless.

Here's a close-up of the flowers, which I seemed to get a bit carried away with! Whoops!

best wishes

Joey x