Some of you have left comments on my YouTube channel, stating that you’re looking forward to making my windmill pincushion project, which I’ll be posting in November. The string of embroidery tutorials that I’ve been posting lately, including this basic blanket stitch tutorial, are leading up to the windmill pincushion project.
If you watch this video tutorial for blanket stitching (hand embroidery), you’ll see images of the upcoming windmill pincushion project. This project should be a ton of fun for anyone who’s learning to embroider, as it offers you lots of opportunities to try different stitches.
In essence, it’s a hand embroidery “sampler” project.
And I should also mention that it makes a fantastic Christmas gift for anyone who sews! In fact, as I post these tutorials, I’m sewing a second windmill pincushion to give away as a Christmas gift this coming season.
However, if you’re not someone who enjoys embroidery, you could actually make the pincushion without all the embroidered embellishments as well. The pincushion itself uses felt applique-like pieces for the windows and door, so anyone who has done applique or quilting will likely find it easy enough as a straight-forward sewing project.
In this tutorial, I tackle the tricky concept of turning corners when doing the blanket stitch. For anyone who has tried this technique, they can tell you that there’s definitely a trick to making the blanket stitch whip around a corner without looking clunky!
So for those of you who follow ChellyWood.com for my hand embroidery tutorials, hopefully you’ll find this “Blanket Stitch With Corners” video super helpful!
Additional Information:
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Some of my followers have wondered what motivates me to give my patterns away for free. First of all, I’m a librarian by trade. Librarians love free stuff! We believe that the more a person knows, the more enriched their life will be. So it may sound kind of crazy, but I want ChellyWood.com to become a sort of library of free patterns that help people learn to sew doll clothes.
If you’d like to learn more about my motives, feel free to visit my Chelly’s Books page.
Please be advised: when I get some time off from my job as a school librarian, I’m planning to develop a new layout for ChellyWood.com, and whenever you redesign something, it’s possible for stuff to get lost! So if there’s a specific pattern you’ve bookmarked because you want to make that outfit, I advise printing the pattern soon. Links may not work quite as well after I redesign my website.
My Gallery Page is the easiest way to search through all of my patterns to find what you want. Each image on the Gallery Page takes you to links for patterns and tutorials.
Need help printing my patterns? This link offers a tutorial showing you how to download and print my FREE patterns using Google Docs. (For the older print-a-pattern tutorial, which uses Microsoft Word, click here.) To review my difficulty scale (demonstrating how hard or easy a pattern is by the number of flowers displayed), take a look back at this blog post.
Please note: you must enlarge my patterns to fit a full-sized piece of American computer paper (8.5 x 11 inches or 216 x 279 mm) without margins, before printing.
My patterns are now available through “Creative Commons Attribution.” This means that I created my patterns (and therefore I own rights to them), but I’m willing to share them with everyone who will tell people about my website.
Here are some helpful ways to tell the world about my patterns:
- You can pin them on Pinterest.
- You can post or like them on Facebook.
- You can tweet about them.
- Use any other form of social media that appeals to you!
Are you new to sewing? I’ve got a playlist of tutorials for the beginning sewists on my YouTube channel. It includes video tutorials showing you how to do a basic straight stitch when sewing by hand, how to use the whipstitch to hem a garment, how to sew on snaps, and even how to design your own doll clothes patterns, for those who are new to design and alterations.
In case you haven’t heard, I have actually designed some commercial patterns for Lammily LLC. You might want to visit the Lammily website to see what they’ve got going on.
If your question wasn’t answered here, feel free to submit a question. You can also write to Chelly Wood at this address. I’m always happy to help my followers find what they need, so they, too, can make amazing doll clothes and crafts.