Stitch Bible

For the last week or so, I've been stitching out all of the decorative stitches on my two sewing machines.  This is something I had planned to do when I got each machine.  But, best intensions being what they are, there were always more fun things to work on in the studio.  It took the inspiration of seeing a beautiful piece of fibre art done by my friend Diana to finally get me working on this.  Diana had made her piece following an online workshop called Stupendous Stitching by Carol Ann Waugh.

I decided to sign up for the online class and the first thing Carol suggests you do is make a stitch bible.  It really is a good idea because it is surprising how different the stitches actually look compared to their little drawings on the machine.

I stitched all of the stitches for my Husqvarna Lily 555 using purple variegated thread.  As I stitched, I labelled each with the corresponding number on the machine for easy reference later.  I used a fine point Sharpie and just hand wrote them.

I used a variety of background 'page colours' just to keep it interesting as I stitched.  These 'pages' are stabilized so that the decorative stitches come out properly.

I then switched to pink thread for my Husqvarna Sapphire 750.  The funny thing is that I decided to use the purple and pink because they really aren't my colours.  The ironic thing, however, is that whenever I refer to this stitch bible I'll be looking at those colours.  'sigh'


Once I finished all of the stitches, I put two pages back to back and did a simple zig zag stitch around the outside to secure the pages (and hide the bobbin stitches).

For the cover, I decided to use some fun lettering from my Letter Love class back in February (look familiar Joanne?). Here's one link to a post with similar lettering if you're interested.  I love how well these lend themselves to machine applique and stitch!

To be able to quickly find the stitches for each machine, I put ribbon tabs on the first page of each section, using the same colour as the stitching.

While I was over at the sewing machine doing all of this, our cat was enjoying her new favourite spot on my new desk.  She's loving that spot in front of the window as much as I do!

I still need to get some grommets so I can 'bind' the pages with a couple of binder rings and then it'll be finished and ready to use.