I’m super excited to announce that I’ll be offering a limited edition of small-scale stitchery classes in my home studio (a.k.a. the crafty clubhouse) starting NEXT WEEK! This is something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time so I finally decided there’s no time like the present! If you live in the NYC area, please join me for one (or more!) of these relaxed, intimate classes where you’ll learn one-on-one with me how to knit, crochet, or embroider.

Each class will consist of two 2-hour sessions which will be held in my home on weekday evenings. I’ll serve some savory snacks and we’ll sip wine while Fifi curls up under our feet and we stitch away. These classes are beginner-level, so if you’ve never picked up a needle or hook before, no worries–I’ll take you through it from the very beginning. If you have a little experience but need a refresher that’s fine too–since the classes are small, I’ll be able to work with each student at their own pace.

I think this is going to be super fun and I’m really excited to meet some new crafty peeps from the area and spread the stitchy love just in time for fall! So let’s get started–here are the deets:

LEARN TO KNIT
In this beginner-level class, you’ll learn the basics of knitting–casting on, knitting, purling, picking up dropped stitches, and casting off–all while making a chunky cowl for fall. The class will consist of two 2-hour sessions; in the first session you’ll learn the basic stitches and begin your cowl. Then you’ll go home and work on your cowl and bring it back to complete during the second session, where I’ll help you solve any problems you had while knitting solo, and finally you’ll learn how to cast off and finish your cowl.

Class size is maximum six students and class will be taught by me. Wine and savory homemade snacks will be served!

Thursdays, September 27 and October 11, 6:30-8:30pm, in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. You will be required to bring yarn and knitting needles to the first class; I’ll provide a detailed supply list with class registration. Class cost is $125.

LEARN TO CROCHET
Have you caught chevron fever? In this beginner-level class, crochet newbies will learn the basics of crochet while mastering the chevron stitch–a crochet classic that is having a major moment right now in the design and fashion worlds. I’ll teach you how to use the basic chevron stitch to make almost anything you like, from a scarf or envelope clutch to a throw pillow or baby blanket. In the first session you’ll learn how to begin your project with a crochet chain and how to work the basic crochet stitches including single, half-double and double crochet, as well as increases and decreases. You’ll also learn how to change colors to make all those fabulous chevron stripes. Then you’ll go home to work on your project a bit, and come back for session two where I’ll help you solve any problems you’re having with your work-in-progress, and finally you’ll learn how to finish your project.

Class size is maximum six students and class will be taught by me. Wine and savory homemade snacks will be served!

Tuesdays, October 9 and October 23, 6:30-8:30pm, in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. You will be required to bring yarn and crochet hooks to the first class; I’ll provide a detailed supply list with class registration. Class cost is $125.

(Crochet image from postcardgraffiti)

LEARN TO EMBROIDER
Hand embroidery is a wonderfully relaxing and minimalist craft that’s perfect for chilling out in front of a movie or stitching on the subway. In this class I’ll take you through everything you need to know to start doing your own hand embroidery projects–from selecting or drawing your own image, transferring the image to fabric, and how to make several embroidery stitches including straight stitch, chain stitch, french knots, herringbone stitch, and more. We will complete a project of your choice–I’ll have some templates available for use to make monograms, or you can draw or bring your own image to embroider.

Class size is maximum six students and class will be taught by me. Wine and savory homemade snacks will be served!

Thursdays, October 25 and November 1, 6:30-8:30pm, in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. You will be required to bring basic embroidery supplies to the first class; I’ll provide a detailed supply list with class registration. Class cost is $125.

If you’d like to register for a class (and I hope you will!), email me at hello [at] brettbara [dot] com and tell me which class you’d like to take. I’ll email you back with instructions on how to submit payment via Paypal, which will secure your spot in class. Class spots will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis. Space is limited, so I encourage you to register early.

Thanks so much–Fifi and I are looking forward to meeting you over crafts, snacks, wine and chit-chat! xo

Interested in hearing about future classes? Follow me on Twitter or Facebook.

Just a quick post today to share this image of the embroidered monogram sampler we’ll be making tomorrow at the American Folk Art Museum! If you’re in NYC, join me there tomorrow, Thursday April 5, to learn everything you need to know to get started with hand embroidery. We’ll cover how to transfer an image to fabric, how to do several basic stitches (split stitch, chain stitch, satin stitch and french knots), and how to finish off your piece and frame it in a hoop. Plus there will be wine! So much to do! Click here for all the details and to see how to sign up.

See you there! xoxo Brett

Did you know the fantastic Folk Art Museum here in NYC hosts crafting nights on Thursdays? I mean, what’s better than being in a space filled with rooms of inspiring handcrafted art, while doing some handcrafting of your own??

I was so honored to be invited to lead an upcoming Make It Thursday at the Folk Art Museum–so if you’re in the area, please join me this coming Thursday for some museum crafting! I’ll be teaching hand embroidery, everything you need to know from how to transfer a design to fabric, to the basic stitches used to make your design come to life. Also, very important, I’m told there will be wine!

When: Thursday, April 5, 6-7:30pm

Where: The American Folk Art Museum, 2 Lincoln Square, New York, NY

Cost is $10 to register (free for museum members). Click here to sign up.

Hope to see you there!

It’s spring, so that can only mean one thing: time to embroider eggs! This is a very special batch of stitchy eggs, because they were hatched especially for a blog post over at the Martha Stewart blog The Crafts Department. (!)

I was so honored when the fine crafty folks from Martha Stewart contacted me recently. They noticed the embroidered eggs I made last year for my Sewing 101 column at Design Sponge, and asked me to create an embroidered-egg tutorial for a post in their egg decorating series this week. Naturally, I was thrilled to egg-cept the invitation!

So I performed my springtime ritual of sorting through all the eggs at the supermarket, opening all the cartons and picking out the smoothest, roundest eggs in the store. Then I fired up my Dremel…

…grabbed some suuuuper pretty floss (this is from the Anna Maria Horner collection from Anchor)…

…and started stitching away!

For this batch of embroidered eggs I played around with big, long stitches in sunbursty shapes.

With a few cross stitches thrown in, because who can resist.

(Psst: don’t tell anyone, but this is the secret to how it’s done.)

Head on over to the Martha Stewart blog The Crafts Department for the full how-to of this project and all the dirty little secrets you need to know to embroider your own eggs.

Great big thanks to the lovely folks at Martha Stewart for inviting me to make some eggs for their blog! Martha’s staff’s egg decorating projects have been such an inspiration to me over the years, and it is truly an honor to be asked to contribute my eggs to their blog.

Happy holidays! As a tiny little gift to you, today I’m sharing some free templates for making embroidered felt ornaments. They’re super easy to stitch, and the perfect kind of relaxed project to work on after Christmas, when all the cooking and gifting is done, and you (hopefully) have some time to just chill out, stay cozy and relax. My favorite holiday crafting time is often the week between Christmas and New Year’s. It may seem like at that point it’s “too late” – but it’s totally not! You can still add your newly-made items to your decor, and then of course you’ll still have them for years to come.

To get started, just click this link: brett bara’s felt ornament templates to download a printable pdf of my ornament templates. There are tons to choose from, including Mister Moose here, an alpaca, gingerbread man, Christmas tree, holiday bulbs, and many more! Once you’ve got your templates, here what you do:

1. Trace two copies of your selected template shape onto felt, using a sharpie or pen.

2. Cut out the shapes, cutting just inside the traced line (this is important to avoid visible pen lines around the edge of your ornament.)

3. Using 3 strands of embroidery floss, embroider one or both of the felt pieces however you like. You can go super simple, or practice some fancy embroidery stitches and make a little sampler, like I did on the ball ornament.

4. Stitch the front and back together. I did this two different ways – either with a running stitch and 1 strand of floss, which creates a somewhat invisible seam (like on the white ball ornament), or with a whipstitch and 3 strands of embroidery floss in a contrasting color, which creates stand-out stitching (like in the moose).

5. Leave an opening in the stitching, then stuff the ornament with fiberfill, and finish seaming the front and back together.

6. Attach a hanging loop using embroidery floss. That’s it!

There’s really no right or wrong way to make these ornaments, so just play around and have fun with it! Enjoy! xoxo

PS: These are the same ornaments we made last week at the New York Public Library Crafternoon, so click here to check out some images of how other crafters embroidered their ornaments. So cute!

So, when I was making my embroidered eggs, I did a lot of research to try to figure out how it was done. There wasn’t much out there to work with — only a few mentions of egg embroidery online — but I did come across some hints that others made theirs by cutting a hole in the back of the egg, which allowed you to work the stitches on the front of the egg. I tried a bunch of different methods and finally concluded that the only way it was physically possible to embroider on an egg was with the hole-in-the-back method. So that’s what I did.

Well. The other day I came across this video which blew that out of the water. It turns out you don’t have to cut a hole in the back of the egg — at least not if you’re a mad embroidery genius with, like, magical fingers.

Annie Garcin, the woman featured in this video, uses a method that has nothing to do with my hole-in-the-back method. Like me, she does use a Dremel tool to pre-drill tiny holes in the egg shell for the actual embroidery. But rather than cut an opening in the egg, she drills her design on both sides of the egg, and works the needle in and out through the tiny holes. (Watch the video to see this in action.)

For the record, I did try this method, and it was head-explodingly difficult. It’s so hard to blindly poke around inside the egg and find the correct hole you need on the other side. Not to mention, I still don’t know how you’d knot the thread. (Unless she’s making attractive knots that show on the outside of the egg.)

Either way, Annie Garcin is an embroidery master. I tip my hat to you, fair lady! Or should I say, my chapeau.

PS: The video above is in French. I could understand some parts of it — here are the details I got: Annie Garcin is an embroidery artist who lives in Corbeil, France. She studied embroidery in school, then went to work for an embroiderer in the sixties who worked for les grandes maisons. (Meaning, she worked for someone who worked for the big fashion houses embroidering couture clothes. How fabulous is that.) She uses silk thread for her embroidery. I think she said she invented this crazy egg embroidery idea herself. And at the end I think she says we need to make sure these ancient crafts aren’t forgotten. (I’ll second that.)

Recently I came across an image online of an eggs that had been embroidered, made by Ukrainian artist Forostyuk Inna. (See the original image here.)

We’re talking real eggs with real embroidery on ‘em. It seemed to defy the laws of physics – and it combined two of my favorite things, egg decorating and sewing. I couldn’t get it out of my mind.

How were the stitches worked? Was it all done, magical-surgeon style, through the tiny holes made when blowing out the egg’s contents? Was there another trick? And most importantly, how did the egg not smash to smithereens?

I had experimented with cutting eggs a few years back when I made some Faberge-style eggs based on an article in Martha Stewing Living. The article instructed you to cut the egg open with a Dremel tool, which sounded impossible but turned out to be completely doable. You really can cut an egg shell with a Dremel, and once you get the hang of it it’s not hard at all. (Use a diamond cutting disc, or other disc meant for fine work. And, uh, watch out for the egg-spray. Let’s just say I had liquid eggs in my hair and on my kitchen walls. Not classy.)

So, okay, I knew egg shells were cut-able. But how were they sew-able? I dug and dug online to see how embroidered eggs were made. There really were no tutorials out there, but I did find a few clues indicating that they were made by cutting a hole in the back of the egg. (First I tried working the embroidery through the small holes made my blowing out the egg, and it really seemed quite impossible. Maybe it could be done, but it wouldn’t be my idea of fun.)

After figuring out the hole-in-the-back secret, the rest was cake. I picked up some micro drill bits for my Dremel and tried drilling holes in the hollowed-out egg shells to make the embroidery. I was nervous that this would create a lot of breakage, but it really didn’t at all. I tell ya, the Dremel is my new best friend.

After that, all that was left to do was make stitches in the pre-drilled holes using regular embroidery floss and a long needle.

I created a full how-to of the process over on my Sewing 101 column at Design Sponge – so pop on over there to see lots of detail shots of how this technique is done.

And there you have it, embroidered eggs! (All the eggs shown in this post are by me.) There are so many ways you could run with this technique — embroider names, monograms, traditional cross-stitch patterns, crazy-quilt stitches — the list goes on and on.

What about you, would you give this a try or does this fall in the crazypants crafting category? :)

All photos by Brett Bara.

If, like me, you’re starting to feel bummed that you didn’t have time to make anything crafty for Halloween, then swing on over to the Jenny S Stitcher & Scribbler blog, where you’ll find a great how-to (and very charming hand-drawn illustrations) for making this freakin cute little dangley spidey. Even without the spider, the web-in-a-hoop alone would be really fun and would take like two seconds to make. I totally want to whip one up tonight while I’m watching Top Design!

I’ve been waiting for a while to post this project because it was a present and I didn’t want to spoil the surprise – but thanks to a fun little trip to DC this weekend, I got to give this gift to its recipient – the fabulous six-month-old Sophie!

Jennifer over at CraftSanity (an excellent crafty podcast – give it a listen!) made this super cool apron which she posted on her blog.

Her blog post and its comments led me down a fascinating interweb trail, and I’ve been having fun perusing other votey crafts online. Okay, Obama-related votey crafts, but what can I say. Check em:

My favorite girl Blythe in a crochet-trimmed tee (bonus points!!) by sewgrandmacathy on flickr.

Obamagurumi!! So awesome. By Ami Amour.

This quilted and embroidered piece is so sweet and beautiful. By miss_glass.

Stunning bean portrait (beans, people!) by monkeycat62.

Want to see a few more? Check out The Obama Craft Project on flickr.