[Pastimes] Embroidered Designs

Hi everyone!
When you are creating a design, inspiration could be anything- an incident in your life, some artwork, nature etc. Different things inspire me at different times and then I try to combine it with another one of my passions and create something. Having a fascination for various arts and specially the Indian Traditional arts and crafts, once I got inspired by the Mehandi (Heena) designs. In India, two types of Heena techniques are popular- The Arabic and the Indian. The Arabic designs are characterized by floral motifs with inclusion of birds like peacock but there are no human faces or bodies as evident in Indian mehandi designs. Another feature of distinction among the two designs is the placement of motifs.The Arabic designs are spaced apart, while Indian designs are placed as close as possible almost covering the complete hand or feet, the common body parts for mehandi application. Colour also is significantly different as Indian Mehandi is red to dark brown or even blackish brown in colour (made by mixing ground mehandi leaves, tea leaves, gooseberries or amla, clove or laung etc.), whereas the arabic mehandi is commonly done in black colour (obtained by mixing hair dye or synthetic dye in henna powder) with brown filling. Some examples of heena designs are

Sample of Indian Heena Design (Image Credits:beauty.fashpages.com )

Sample of Arabic Heena Design (Image Credits:www.heenadesigns.org)

With Heena as inspiration, I created this set of eight motifs. A motif is a design which is used as a decoration or as part of an artistic pattern. These motifs are embroidered using variety of stitches like satin stitch, chain stitch, stem stitch, buttonhole stitch, filling stitch, running stitch etc. The main forms used are again my favorite peacock and paisleys and a combination of two.

Hope you like my creations... do leave a comment to let me know!

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[Review] Vanity Trove- Introducing NEW Customizable Trove!

Hi Lovely Ladies,
If you have been following my past few posts (or you may check them out here), you would have guessed how much I love receiving these little boxes full of beautiful surprises every month and out of those Vanity Trove remains to be my favorite. Let me tell you about an interesting concept that Vanity Trove is floating- Customisable Trove! Sounds interesting, isn't it?
Here is what they have to say about this concept-

"VanityTrove recommends the products BEST SUITED for you based on your Beauty Profile and Preferences.
You are then able to PICK AND CHOOSE your beauty samples from a wide array of beauty samples selection to go into your PERSONALISED trove.
You will then receive this exciting trove of self-picked goodness within 7 working days.
To ensure your beauty discovery is a smooth-sailing one, let’s follow through these simple steps below.To start you off, complete Beauty Profile to see some recommended products suited for you!

Head on to: http://bit.ly/10AKDzc

You will be prompted to fill up your Beauty Profile by answering a few simple questions like

Next, want to be the first to try out products you have been lemming for so long? Add them to Wishlist, Like the Brand and the Product. This helps to unlock more samples for you, you will then be able to pick these samples when they are released!

Tell more  of what you feel about all the products you have used by Adding them to your Beauty Table and Write a Review. Cos we hope to help you relive the moment and deliver the same pleasant experience again!

HEADS UP!  VanityTrove will be introducing new phase of beauty discovery whereby you will be plugged into the latest happenings of people you follow on VanityTrove. Read up on their latest reviews, brand likes and product likes, products they wish for.  Be sure to also follow people of your interest to know what is up with their beauty regime! It will be just like Facebook but for Beauty."

So, what do you think? Wannna give it a try and get the products 
you have been waiting for only for S$25. Even I have mine coming in few days. Click the link http://bit.ly/10AKDzc to get started! Vanity Trove is available for subscription in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Taiwan.

You may also like register with Vanity Trove, fill your beauty profile, and interact with others and see what they love and are using. The platform is like a facebook for beauty. You may also like to follow me here to know about my favorite products, my wishlist and also product reviews... See you there!
Till then keep reading 

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[Pastimes] Initials on Handkerchief...

There was a time when I was obsessed with embroidery. It was vacation time in schools and universities and I used to be at home for most of the days and those were the days when I embroidered for around 10-12 hours a day. 

I decided to embroider Initials on Mr. Scientist's handkerchief and surprise him. So I sat down with my PC to select a nice font for the same and within an hour I had my design ready and so I embroidered his initial (Y) by the time he came back from work. I used satin stitch, stem stitch and french knots for this design.

Later in the evening, pleased with my work, I told him that I have something for him and showed him the handkerchief and the reaction I got was something I never imagined. He was like, 'It's good but why there is no 'N' (my Initial) here? We are together and hence, with my name, your name should be there always, so I would like if you do something with both Y and N in it...' 

For a while, I did not know how to react, I was pleased by the significance I hold in his life and also a bit upset about beginning the whole design process again. But next day with CorelDraw software, I created Y and N, and this is what I finally embroidered using satin stitch and stem stitch.

How do you like these? Do leave a comment and let me know...

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You may also like to read my post on doodles here or on embroidered bookmarks here

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[Pastimes] Love for Reading and Embroidery!

My love for books and needle & thread once lead me into creating embroidered bookmarks. I really enjoyed making these bookmarks and used my favorite embroidery stitch- satin stitch. This I feel is the trickiest stitch as those who love it can work very well with this and those who don't really like it can get this really messy. 

The motifs are inspired from Parsi Embroidery, which is a very fine and delicate form of embroidery, using mainly satin stitches, long and short stitches, french knot etc. 
White cotton fabric was used as base and cotton embroidery threads were used to create design. After completing the embroidery, the fabric was sandwiched between a layer of colored paper and cellophane paper and was finished with a border of coloured paper.

Hope you like the two bookmarks... and if like me you also love reading and needlework, why not create some of your own. And if you do, don't forget to share the pics with all of us here!

Till then, 

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