I'm Sure This Post Would Have Been Improved With Wine Too!

It's been a while since I posted an embroidery update (I haven't worked on any embroidery lately - I have been so non-stop that I haven't had a chance, and all my crafting has been focused on making gifts for people).

So I thought I would share this super fun creation that I made. This was another of the Christmas gifting crafts that I made.

I found this bag while clearing out the house, and I thought it would be great to do some embroidery with, but I had no ideas at the time.

Christmas was fast approaching and I had one person left to create something for, and no ideas what to make. Part of their gift included a bottle of wine, so I thought a personalised, embroidered wine bag would work well.

I researched a few quote ideas to put on the bag, and came across this one, which I fell in love with - "Wine improves with age, NAME improves with wine" (obviously personalising it with their name).

I selected a font, created the design and printed it. Using the printed design as a reference, I traced the words onto the wine bag, ready for embroidering.

I selected a black thread to do the embroidery, as I thought it would look most effective. I was worried that using another colour would end up being washed out or not looking good due to the colours of the hessian and the blue on the sides, or that the colour would clash.

I then started on the embroidery process.

It was actually a lot more difficult than I anticipated, for a variety of reasons. The bag was sealed in all the sides except the top, and there was no way of opening it, so I had to put my arm down the opening to do the embroidery, which didn't allow for much movement of my arm. Due to this, it meant that I wasn't able to see the back of the work at any point in the process, so I had to feel my way through making this the whole time. While I often work by feel only, not having the option to do so was actually quite hard - especially as the hessian material was plastic-backed, so I couldn't actually feel the material.

The plastic backing made it harder to get the needle through as well, but I managed it, and it looked quite effective.

Another problem I had with the fact that the material had the backing was that my arm got very sweaty in the bag (don't worry, I did clean the bag once I had finished)!

It was a lot of fun to do, even though it was more stressful and took more time. The result was worth it, as was how happy the person was with their gift!!

Looking back on this project to create this blog post has made me really want to do another embroidery piece, so I am hoping I get the opportunity to start one soon!