Kantha Embroidery Stitch tutorial - Chakra Butti

 Hi all

Hope all are staying safe and doing good.  In the kantha embroidery series today I am happy to share with you the tutorial for doing chakra butti.  

If you want to learn kantha embroidery from the beginning start from the following links one by one.

Jod Stitch, Dhaneer Sheesh Stitch

Kantha Butti

Chakra butti takes the shape of a chakra after completing.. It is same as kantha butti only but in a chakra shape.  First lets see the steps to do the chakra butti.

Start with the following shape.

                 

Start with running stitch from point 1.  Take a small stitch from 1 - 2.

Take the next running stitch in the tip of the next petal and continue so on.  First round completed.

Now for the second row make stitches parallel to the previous stitches following the trace.  It will automatically will be a little left of the previous stitches.  

Continue in the same clockwise direction and do the third round.  

This is after completing half of the design.

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Continue in the same manner and finally you will end up covering the full design.  Sometimes if all the petals are not of the same size you may  end up leaving small gaps in some of the petals.  In that case I will not go in the round.  Instead I will complete one petal and move on the other. 

In the above picture I have completed the left over space in one petal. It is indicated with arrow. 

Now complete the remaining two petal with straight stitches.

Fill the centre with the herringbone stitch or straight stitches.  Chakra butti is done.  

All the posts related to kantha embroidery can be found here.

TypeWriter Font Art - A treasure I found

 Hi all

Hope all are staying safe and doing well.  Today I am going to make a small post about what I have found in our shop sometime back.  When I was in school typewriters were used largely to type a document.  Only after computers are broadly used keyboards were used for typing which is comparatively easier than typing using a typewriting machine. 

I am remembering the first day of my typewriting class typing 'asdf lkjhg' for a whole page that too with correct fingers for each letter and my little fingers were swollen at the end of that page.  But I didn't give up and completed both lower and higher grades in english typewriting and lower grade in tamil typewriting.  Thanks to those classes, now I have a good speed in typing with both the hands without seeing the keyboard.  Enough of my story.  Now let me show the treasure I found.  It is an old photo.

I found this photo in my hubby's shop long back.  While hanging in the wall it was like a portrait written with letters in pencil. Only after taking it in hand I realised it was made with the letter typed using typewriter.  It was amazing to see the creativity of the person who made it.  The name of the person who made this art is not seen.  It has been hidden inside the frame.  He/she has used the letters in a clever way to create this portrait of a mom holding her baby.  Thumbs up to him/her.  Hats off to his/her patience.

Do you want to see the typwriter which I have learned.   It is similar to this one. 

Once I have tried to recreate the same using typewriter font in computer.  But I had no patience to go beyond line 3. I have downloaded a typewriter font from here.  But it's my goal to recreate this in computer. Now this photo has  found a place in my craft table.  Have you found anything like this.  Do write down in the comments section.  

I will be back with kantha embroidery series tomorrow.  Till then, have a happy time.

Mandala in black background using 3-D opaque ink pens

 Hi all

Hope all are staying safe.  Apart from needle and threads, yarn I used to buy different colour pens and sketches.  I use those pens for doodling and sometimes try calligraphy to relax.  After getting introduced to the art of zentangling and mandala drawing I started collecting more and more pens.  

I started drawing mandalas in A4 paper and then moved on to notes with thick papers.   But I always like something with black background.  I like to do embroidery on black fabric.  When I was searching to buy black chart papers online I found out a note with black sheets.  Immediately I bought one and it was lying for with me more than a year.  Likewise during an online shopping  I bought colour pens seeing the description that it is used to write in dark background.    Also they are all in pastel shades and I purchased it.  Then came to know, it can be used to write in dark colour chart papers as well.  

So two days back when I was not in a mood to embroider I picked that note and those pens and started drawing a mandala out of it.  First let us see the mandala.

Materials used

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The inks are watery and it will not be visible that much while drawing or writing.   But once dried up it will be brightly seen as in the above mandala.  Very very useful to write/draw against a dark colour background.  These pens can also be useful to draw dotted mandalas also. 

I have also drawn this mandala in white drawing sheet also.  I have used Maped Color peps Duo colours to colour these.  

I have provided the colouring page for this mandala and also a skeleton mandala.  If any of you interested you can create patterns to fill in the blank spaces.

You can view my another mandala here.

That's all for today.  Tomorrow I will come up with the next stitch in kantha embroidery series.  Till then, have a nice time. 

My colour choice - right or wrong?

 Hi all

Hope all are doing well.  In my embroidery journey so many I embroider the designs perfectly.  But if I show to my family they will say the colour choice is not good.  So most of the times I stitch from the patterns with the colour keys to avoid the imperfection.  Whenever I stitch from a chart without any colour key or if I choose my own colours I will not be satisfied with the end result.  

Today's finish is one such project which I have finished a month back.  Once when I was exploring pinterest for designs I came across this blog and I fell in love with the cross stitch designs there.  Oh my god so many cross stitch designs available for free.   I have saved one of those charts and many were in my to do list.  Those charts were in red and blue colour.

I decide to choose my own colour choices and tried dark blue and light coral.  The light shade coral is very light after stitching with 2 strands and the designs not stand out.  That was my first mistake.  Then out of my own interest I decided to frame each design with a simple design.  But there too I made a wrong choice of using two colours.  I should have used single colour for the frame.  Have a look at the design.  What do you think of my colour choices?

Fabric used - 14 ct Aida

Threads used - Anchor embroidery threads.(2 strands)

Then I decided to add some quotes and this one is my favourite.  "Look up, Aim high" is the motto of our school.  

Are you a novice in doing cross stitch? I have a cross stitch kit recommendation for you.  When I saw this kit in amazon it reminded me of my beginner days I started doing cross stitch.  I didn't know how to ask for the aida fabric.  The shop keeper gave me these plastic canvas sheets and woolen threads only.  But it was a nice start.  I still have it as a treasure in my mom's place.  

Now everything we are getting at the click of the button and that too as a kit and I purchased this for one of my friends daughter to gift her.  She was very happy with it.  This kit is best for a beginner.  Have a look at the kit I found in amazon. 

(This is an affiliate link.  If you made any purchase through this link I will get a commission from that sale at no cost to you)

So what is the lesson learned? 

If you are going for color choices stitch a small sample out of it and see how it looks after stitching.  So that's it for today.  Tomorrow I will come up with a small mandala. Till then have a nice day.

Kantha Embroidery Design 3

 Hi all

Hope all are staying safe.  In kantha embroidery series I have posted two designs already. 

Kantha embroidery design 1

Kantha embroidery design 2

Today's design is based on kantha butti the next stitch. How to work kantha Butti? can be found in this link.  I have worked the design on black colour silk cotton fabric. Lets see the design .

Pattern for the design

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I have used 3 strands of anchor embroidery threads all over the design.  

Pink - No.63

Cream - No. 926

The design will look better if all the star buttis are worked in cream colour. 

Star butti is simple straight stitches that emerges in the centre.  You can refer the stitch tutorials in the following links

Kantha Butti

Jod Stitch

My amazon picks for kantha embroidery dresses

 

Running Stitch family Embroidery / Sampler of running stitch family

 Hi all

Hope all are doing well.  My step in learning embroidery is in my grade 6.  We have 2 classes per week for sewing.  The first piece I have stitched using needle and thread is for a hand kerchief where our madam taught some basic stitches.  And the first stitch I have learned is running stitch and we made a border out of holbein stitch.  At that time I didn't know the name for holbein stitch.  We have been taught it as running stitch only.  

As I started exploring the internet I came across Sarah's excellent site and started learning the stitches one by one.  After seeing various stitch samplers I wanted to make one for me and started from the running stitch family.  I have stitched all the stitches in a straight line.  So far I have completed four family of stitches from sarah's dictionary.  

Today I am happy to share with you the stitches from the running stitch family.  Here I have stitched 15 different stitches.  Have a look at the running stitch family.

In the next picture I have given the name of the stitches along with it.   Next to interlaced running stitch is again the same stitch with two colours of interlacing.

I trying to design a hoop design out these stitches.  Will post it once done.  Hope all of you like this post.  I will be back tomorrow with the kantha embroidery design that includes kantha butti which I have posted yesterday.  Till then, have a nice time with your needle and thread.

How to work Kantha Butti?/ Kantha Embroidery Motif - Kantha Butti

 Hi all

Hope all are staying safe.  In April I have posted a kantha embroidery design based on Jod Stitch, Dhaneer Sheesh stitch and another one using Herringbone stitch, Dhaneer Sheesh stitch.  

Today We will learn another pattern used in kantha embroidery.  It is called Kantha Butti.  When we want to embroidery tiny triangular floral motifs this stitch is used.  It is used as spray all over the design.   When the stitch is worked closely in circle, it will produce a woven effect.  It looks like satin stitch. 

 

First we will see how to work the butti in the left.  It should be worked from the outer corner of any petal.

Start from the point 1.  Bring the needle up at point 1 and insert at point 2.  Again bring the needle up at 3 and then insert at 4.  Continue to work like this following the numbers in the clockwise manner till 16.  One row is completed.

For the second row bring the needle very close and below the point 1 and work in the same manner as of row 1.

Work the stitches very close to each other.  Take care it should not overlap each other.  

The circle at the centre is worked with straight stitches from the top or you can go for herringbone stitch. 

 

 

This stitch when worked with different shades of the same colour gives a beautiful effect.  Use dark, medium and light shades of the same thread from the top of the petal as shown in the following closed butti.

 

Hope this tutorial helps you to learn kantha butti.  Design with this stitch will be posted soon. Till then have a happy time with needle and thread.