Sketches, Doodles, & Cetera — Tutorials

Thick, dark fabrics are always a challenge to use in embroidery. They give a lovely result at the end, but transferring your artwork onto them to begin your project is tricky. You can see through the fabric to trace onto it, and many transfer pens won't show up on dark colors.

A great solution for this is to use tissue paper as your transfer.

Discover an enchantingly simple bookbinding technique using just a twig, rubber band, and paper!

I stumbled upon this rustic zine-making method at my local library and was immediately charmed by its accessibility and organic feel. Perfect for nature journals, mini art collections, or personalized gifts, these twig-bound booklets require no special tools and can be completed in minutes.

In my quest to "find my style," I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I do and don't like in my drawings. One thing I've discovered I like a lot is the sketchy graphite linework in my initial thumbnail sketches, so I'm trying to find ways to bring that into my finished work.

I recently discovered an easier way to bring that into digital work, so I put together a tutorial to share it with you.

I've been working on an embroidery of a flying monkey from The Wizard of Oz. I knew I wanted to play with some fun stitches, and his fur and the embroidery on his outfit seemed like a great way to experiment with some new techniques.I learned a new stitch for this project called the Hungarian braided chain stitch, and I thought I'd share it with you as a tutorial. It creates a really lovely textured, raised line that seemed perfect to decorate the monkey's little cap. Start with a small straight stitch at the beginning of your design line.Bring your needle up...