Embroidery with Heather Ross

During November of last year I took a couple of different crafty classes because I wanted most of my Christmas gifts to be handmade. The only successful gift that came out of the process was these (former) napkins. These are the fruit of my labor from an embroidery class with Heather Ross at Purl Patchwork. My goal was to embroider four napkins with designs that my mother would cherish enough to use. I decided to find/create images of my two daughters. Heather showed me a book of embroidery by Piu Sudo, an illustrator whose work I immediately fell in love with, and I used the bottom two designs which were originally from her book, Delightful Creations with Embroidery and Applique (I tweaked them a little bit). The top two are all mine.

Now let me preface this story. I have been a huge fan of Heather's fabric prints forever, so much so that at times I probably wish I were her. So how do you act when you take a class with a person who is an idol? Yeah, I didn't want to seem like a drooling puppy or a stalker, but it is somewhat awkward. Well, when I am nervous I talk a lot, so needless to say I was quite a chatty patty. I told everyone about how my mother was very particular so I needed to make the napkins just "SO" so that they wouldn't end up in the closet never to be seen again.

I think they thought I was a little nutty- why wouldn't my mother love anything I made?

"No" I said, "She's a Virgo, so the napkins have to be a certain way or else she won't use them. It is really difficult to explain."

They just gave me "whatever" looks and then changed the conversation to the rules of defriending on Facebook.

Well I finally finished the napkins for my mother and she loved them. I went home to New York (she lives outside SF) and she calls me a couple of weeks later and says,"Oh Patricia, I made the most adorable coasters out of your napkins." Figures.

I just want to say to my class (who will never read this) "I TOLD YOU SO".

Does anyone else have parents who always put gifts in the closet never to be seen again?

Another gift that my parents received this past Christmas was a wine holder that they had been given last year from my bother and his wife. My brother's wife had been so insulted to find it in their garage that she took it and rewrapped it for this year. Maybe she thought the timing was better the second go around.

Anyways, I wanted to write about how much I really loved Heather's class and she just came out with a new book Weekend Sewing that we were able to sneak peak in class. I think it is great and I highly recommend it if you would like some fun sewing projects.