Not long after Christmas I began thinking about new years resolutions (as you do) and I was determined to make one that I could actually keep, having previously failed at the following…
– give up chocolate (as if!)
– stop eating so much cheese (see above)
– fit back into my size 10 skinny jeans (taken to the charity shop)
– learn to crochet (this went well for the first few weeks although I now have a half made blanket and a cupboard stuffed full of yarn)
– take up running (this is something my husband and I were going to do together although after falling back to sleep having been woken up at 6am to go on our very first run I quickly realised this was NOT for me. Hubs went on his own – yay for him!)
So having failed at all of the above I thought VERY carefully about what my new years resolution for 2015 would be and I decided I was going to learn to stitch. Not just any old stitching, more specifically I wanted to learn how to embroider.
For ages I had been lusting over all the gorgeous hoop art on Etsy – I imagined having a hoop wall like the ones you see on Pinterest. However, I quickly realised that if I wanted to fill a whole wall of my house with gorgeous hoop art from Etsy I would need a hefty pay rise! So I decided I was going to make the hoops for my Pinterest inspired hoop wall myself. Luckily my Mum is a sewing whizz (she founded Bustle & Sew – go over and take a look, you will adore her designs, promise!) so she was able to teach me the basics (eg. how not to get your floss into a horrible tangley mess, how to make sure your backstitch doesn’t look like a 3 year old has stitched it…etc etc…). A few hours in front of the laptop watching YouTube videos on repeat and I was ready to go!
And here it is…the very first hoop I stitched for my Pinterest inspired hoop wall!
I was on a roll! I spent hours practicing new stitches, lusting over pastel coloured embroidery floss and debating whether I wanted to introduce oval shaped hoops to my carefully spaced out hoop wall (FYI, I did, and it’s amazing). Then I discovered something that would take my embroidery addiction to a whole new level…teeny tiny embroidery hoops by the super talented (and very lovely!) Sonia from Dandelyne. WOW. Not only are her hoops tiny and cute and so sweet but you can turn them into necklaces and brooches…you can wear your teeny tiny designs in teeny tiny hoops! AMAZING!
I stitched necklace after necklace although I quickly began to realise that there are only so many necklaces one gal needs! So I decided to open a shop, to sell the necklaces I loved to make but just simply wouldn’t be able to wear…but how to choose a name? Enter our 9 month old very energetic but extremely sweet natured goldendoodle puppy, Tilly…
Whenever I’m stitching, this little rascal is never far away. She snuggles right up to me and loves getting her snout (and, on occasion, paws) right into my floss box. Whether she is particularly helpful or not still remains to be seen but she is very enthusiastic and if she knew my little Etsy shop had been named after her I’m sure she would be very pleased!
If you’d like to help keep Tilly in dog biscuits (!!) please do pop over to my Etsy shop and have a little look at what’s on offer…
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Tilly & Floss 
Lovely blog. You got this now keep it going!
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Thank you Claire 🙂 I think it’s the longest I’ve ever managed to stick to a New Years resolution! X
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