embroidered trucker hat

We're taking the family camping later this month and I'm super excited.  I love camping, but I do not love how greasy my hair gets while camping (bangs don't help).  I normally wouldn't mind looking abhorrent in nature, but we'll be near a quaint little town that I adore for day excursions, so appearance counts.  I discovered that a hat would help, which is something that I oddly haven't owned up to this point. 

Our old tent finally bit the dust on our last trip, so we had to buy a replacement at Cabela's.  It was there that I saw this trucker hat for the low price of $5.  But it said Cabela's, which is lame.  I didn't want a Cabela's hat, but I DID want a hat that only cost $5.  I figured I could do something with it once I got rid of the Cabela's logo.

Admittedly, ripping the old lettering from the hat would have been much faster and easier with a seam ripper.  But I don't have one of those so I just used small scissors and a lot of patience.  If I ever do this again, I need to get a seam ripper.  I think they cost a whopping $3 or so.

After all evidence of the Cabela's logo was removed, I drew a design in pencil in its place.  I kinda doodled, but I was careful to make sure the design covered all the old lettering so nothing would show through.  A floral pattern lends itself well to this, because petals and leaves can go wherever you want them to.  Whereas a rainbow would have been rather limiting, for example.

I grabbed the strongest needle I owned and just went to town in colors that looked good with my red mesh and bill.  I used all six strands of embroidery floss, hoping that would mean fewer stitches.  I gotta say hats are STRONG, and I actually broke two needles while stitching.  Just snapped in half in my fingers.  I've never had that happen to me.

Turned out pretty good!  I'm glad I did this, but it SUUUUUCKED.  I developed some hard core callouses on my fingertips getting that big ass needle through the hat.  It had a mesh backing that would often catch the needle and spring it off to the side of where I wanted.  And the seam running vertically down the center was THICK, so the going was slow and tough.  But look!  So pretty!

 Rockin' it.  Imma be the prettiest old lady at the camp ground.

Hand Embroidered Pendants

I did it again.  This is way too much fun.  Now I need to get the etsy ball rolling evidently, and pricing?  I have no idea.  What would anyone pay for one of these?  Seriously.  What would you pay?

EDIT - My etsy shop is up and I've got a few lil treasures up there for sale.  Necklaces are generally $25, earrings generally $20 (unless there are some costly semi-precious stones in the mix), and I take special orders for an additional $5.  Check me out! Owls & Octopi on etsy. 

embroidered pendant necklace

 

Admittedly, my embroidery skills are slightly less than on point, but apart from that little foible this darling necklace turned out just as I'd hoped.  A little bit grandma, a little bit spunky.  I used a vintage hankie as my fabric for this, which sounds nice ("vintage" is a good buzz word), but it also provided a simple template to follow with the needle.  I have a bunch of these hankies that are gathering dust anyway, and I liked the flower pattern on this one.  I honestly just didn't trust myself to come up with my own pattern.

This necklace was whipped up in a relative jiffy.  The needlepoint was the most time consuming part, and you're really limited there anyway because of size.  I spent about an hour sewing, and the rest took 20 minutes. 

I followed the hankie's pretty flower pattern with embroidery floss (two strands only) and cut it out in a circle shape with about 1/4-inch+ of extra fabric around the edges of the image.  

I had an antique bronze pendant circle frame that I got from the craft store, but I needed something sturdy and not too thick to wrap my fabric around.  I ended up flexing my super-resourceful muscles and used the plastic base from a reusable grocery tote.  I've used this stuff before to make brims on knit hats, and it works really well.  It's bendable but makes a good form.  I'm sure there's a product out there designed specifically for this type of purpose but this was free.

I cut the plastic stuff into a circle that fit inside the pendant with a thin gap around the edges.  That will allow the fabric to fold around and still fit within the metal frame.

Unfortunately my form is black and my fabric is white.  I didn't want the black to show through, and I also kinda wanted to give it a pincushion look.  So I used a bit of thicker white fabric to stick between the two.  I cut it slightly smaller than the plastic form.

Here's a picture of my assembly line.  I decided to try hot glue, with a Plan B of gorilla glue.  The hot glue worked, so I never had to try Plan B.  I glued the white fabric to the plastic base, then put a drop of glue on top and centered my needlepoint over it.  I flipped it over and carefully pulled it taut around the edges and glued it down.  

The hard apple cider was my helper.

Then I put a glurg of hot glue inside the metal frame and stuck the fabric circle inside. It fit perfectly and so far has stayed put just fine.

Ta-da!

Another shot for art.  Lookit the hankie I destroyed!

And the finished necklace.  I harvested the chain from an old ugly necklace, stuck a few jump rings on one end and a lobster clamp on the other.  And it's beautiful!