Green Eggs and Ham tutorial

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

This simple green eggs and ham felt food tutorial will let you celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday 365 days a year!

Do you like

green eggs and ham?

I do not like them, Sam-I-am.

I do not like

green eggs and ham.

Materials
Felt: white, light green, dark green
Embroidery thread: white, light green, dark green
Embroidery needle
Polyfil


Directions
1. Cut felt food pieces (2 dark green ovals, 1 light green oval, 2 small light green circles, 1 small white circle, 4 white egg shapes).

2. Place pieces on top of each other, making 2 green eggs and 1 slice of green ham.

3. Sew green yolk onto one piece of white egg, using a running stitch. Stuff yolk before sewing shut. Repeat for second egg.

4. Sew two pieces of white eggs together, using a running stitch. I did not stuff the white part of the egg, but you can if you'd like your egg to be fluffy. Repeat for second egg.

5. Sew white circle onto left hand side of light green oval, using running stitch. Sew light green oval onto one dark green oval, using running stitch.

6. Sew ham slice onto second dark green oval, using a blanket stitch. Stuff ham slice before seeing shut.

7. Enjoy your very own plate of green eggs and ham!

Don't have time to make your own set of green eggs and ham? You can pick up a handmade set by visiting my Etsy shop.

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© 2014 Melissa/This Girl Creates

Please remember that items made using my patterns and tutorials are for personal use only and can not be sold for profit. Thanks!

Summer Stitching Club - Week 1

I do a lot of crocheting, hand sewing, and cross-stitching, but not much embroidering. I have been wanting to increase my embroidery skills this year, so when I came across Wild Olive's Summer Stitching Club I knew I had to join.

Two things I loved about this "club":

1. It is only $8.00 for the entire summer!
2. There will be 12 small, summer-themed embroidery patterns for us to stitch. 

I love that the patterns are small. This will give me some practice learning the embroidery stitches without having to complete a huge project. Then at the end of the 12 weeks, we will combine all of the patterns into one large hexagon quilt. I am a little nervous about the quilt part, but I am up for the challenge. 

Curious as to the week 1 pattern? Here is a hint. . . I use these every day, especially while driving. 

Sunglasses!

The completed pattern will include the 12 embroidered hexagons and 38 colored hexagons.

I went through my fabric and found some blue, white, and orange flowered fabric that I had bought last year. I love it, but hadn't found the right project for it, until now! I also had some orange and white butterfly fabric that matched, but I needed one more color. So, I picked up some orange polka dotted fabric this weekend and am now ready to start crafting my colored hexagons. 

Want to join the cool club? You still can. Just visit Wild Olive to sign up. It is the perfect way to celebrate the summer and practice a little embroidery too!

Weekend Projects

The weekend is finally here! Why is it that short work weeks always feel so long?

Anyhoo. . . my allergies have been giving me fits all week, so I have decided to take it really easy this weekend and stay indoors with the girls and craft. Sounds like the perfect weekend, don't cha think?

I am still working on some Halloween items, which I will hopefully have completed by the beginning of October. I still have three pillows, a wall hanging, and a wreath to complete. My little dia de los muerto cat pillow will hopefully be completed this weekend. I've been using the Gato Muerto embroidery pattern I purchased from Urban Threads as inspiration.

Here is how it is coming along, so far:

I think she is going to be super cute when she is done!

I have all of the white bones cut out, but just need to sew them all onto her body. I'll then need to embroider the super cool designs on her face and body.

I still need to decide whether to leave her like a stuffed animal pillow or stitch her onto a square pillow. If I stitch her onto a square pillow I will add the flowers around her.

Which way do you think is better?

Pinspiration - Cross Stitch Pumpkin

I'm linking up this week with The CSI Project. Their challenge is a project inspired by Pinterest! That is what Pinspiration is all about. :)

 

Last week I posted about starting my Halloween projects. Here are my four projects, again. They can all be found, along with several dozen other awesome Halloween projects, on my Halloween Pinterest Board.

1. Felt flower wreath    2. Cross stitch pumpkin   3. Mantle scarf   4. Black cat pillows

Well, I am happy to post that I have finished my first Halloween project. My cross stitch pumpkin is finally complete! This was one of the very first projects I pinned on Pinterest, so it is very satisfying to have finished it, and before Halloween too.

If you remember from last week, I explained how I mapped out the skull pattern and poked all of the holes. That was actually the really difficult part. Once the cross stitching started it was just a matter of following the pattern and weaving the yarn through the correct hole.

My progress was slow, but steady:

Sorry for the bad pics, but these were taken late at night with my cell phone. :( I wanted to show the hole patterns, but they are a little hard to see.

You can see them a little better in this picture. I did have to go back and poke each hole again before threading my needle and yarn through it. The foam holes closed up over time.

It took me a little over a week to complete my pumpkin, but I didn't work on it every day. I think all in all it took, maybe 5 hours. One bit of advice, keep your strand of yarn short. The first few rows I stitched with a very long strand of yarn. As I continued to pull it through the holes it got tangled and eventually frayed. I finally tied it off, cut it, and then opted for a much shorter strand. That worked a whole lot better!

So, here is it! My very own cross stitch skull pumpkin.

Not so sure I'll put it on my white mantle. I think it gets lost in all of the white. But, maybe once I put up my orange and black Halloween decor it will blend a lot better.

Overall, I am very pleased with the way it turned out. Some of the lines aren't exactly straight, but for cross stitching on a ribbed pumpkin I think it looks great.

This was a pretty inexpensive project too.

Materials:
Fake white pumpkin, medium size - $19.99 (I used a 40% Michaels coupon)
1 skein of black yarn - free (from my stash)
Yarn needle - free (from my stash)
Pointy object to poke holes - free (I used a knitting needle from my stash)

Total cost: $12.00

I'd love to try another pattern and even a different color pumpkin, maybe black with a white yarn raven or maybe a Halloween word like Boo! I just have to wait for another 40% off coupon. :)

Feeling a little more inspired

I've been in a funk lately, both in my crafts and writing. I don't know why, but this summer I have been so lazy. I really haven't wanted to craft or write anything at all. I think it is because of the heat. :) But now that the fall decorations are hitting the stores, I am becoming excited and a little more inspired.

I have several Halloween projects that are on my to-do list this year. These projects WILL be completed by the end of this month, because I tend to put up my Halloween decorations the weekend of Labor Day. I know it is a little early, but one month is not long enough to enjoy Halloween.

1. Felt flower wreath    2. Cross stitch pumpkin   3. Mantle scarf   4. Black cat pillows

For this year's colors, I am sticking with orange and black. I do like to throw in a little purple and green from year to year, but this year I'm just focusing on the traditional Halloween colors.

I was really excited to start on my first project this past weekend. The skull cross stitch pumpkin has been on my to-do list for awhile, and I finally got around to buying a fake white pumpkin at Michaels. You have to get their fake pumpkins, especially the white ones, pretty early in the season before they are out of stock. I decided on a medium sized one, so my skull could be a little bigger.

The first thing I did was make the holes in the pumpkin. I enlarged the pattern, printed it out, and taped it to the pumpkin, just like I would if I was carving a pumpkin with template. I then poked the holes through the pumpkin. The tutorial calls for a bamboo skewer or ice pick to make the holes. I improvised and used a knitting needle. The pumpkins are not that thick, so a small pencil might even work.

After I finished the holes, I started to cross-stitch my pumpkin. I kept the pattern on my computer screen so I could follow along, because a bunch of holes on a pumpkin can get very confusing. As I went along I had to re-poke some of the holes with the knitting needle, since they had closed up.

Here is my progress so far:

It is really going to be super cute when it is done, but it is very time consuming. Just making the holes and stitching the first two rows, I finished another row yesterday, took me several hours. Then again, I was watching a mini marathon of Supernatural while I was doing this, and that tends to take away my concentration. :)

My goal is to have my skull pumpkin completed by the weekend, so I can move onto my next project!