This month’s Love Embroidery magazine, issue 14, came with a keyring embroidery project that I was very excited to try. The embroidery, though, a floral design with woven wheel roses, wasn’t my style.
So I decided to get my watercolours out to design a simple embroidery that would look good inside a tiny hoop. I thought it’d be a fast process, but it took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do. At first, I thought it’d go for an autumny embroidery, but the design felt a bit out of season now that it’s almost summer.
Looking back at the mustard fabric that came with the project, the colour reminded me of a background typical of outdoor badges, which can be found on Pinterest and are usually sewn on adventure clothes. I added the name Willow because most badges I saw online had the name of the lake or mountain they represented, and Willow matches my blog and Instagram.
Designing the embroidery and choosing the colours was the easy part. I didn’t have a hoop small enough for the fabric, so I had to make do with a 4″ one that was too big, and the fabric kept pulling away. But the complicated part came when I had to build the keyring, and I couldn’t keep my embroidery centred for the life of me. I think that’s why Love Embroidery chose the flowers, they look good from any angle.
I think if I could go back and do this again, I would’ve left more space for the letters as they ended up being too close to the keyring hoop. I’d also like to try another design that it’s easier to keep centred.
This keyring was the best Love Embroidery project I’ve gotten so far. I prefer embroidery kits like this one instead of the usual iron-on pattern transfers that come with every issue, mostly because I don’t own an iron, so I can’t use them. I also liked the bicycle embroidery kit that we got a few issues back.
I’ve seen people on Pinterest and Etsy creating necklaces with mini embroidery hoops, and they all look so cute! That’s definitely on my embroidery bucket list.
Willow in Winter 