Jenny Doh

Embroidered Converse Tutorial

Love wearing Converse, don't you?
Recently, I decided to add a little bit of embroidery to my black pair. Here's how ...

For the right shoe, I took one of the stitched white lines of the shoe as my guide to add simple straight stitches, first with red perle cotton and then white perle cotton to make an arrow. No pattern, no transfer lines ... I just went fo rit. And then I added some scallop-shapes with back stitches, and then some random straight stitches and French knots.


For the left shoe, I made a heart, using one of the stitched lines of the shoe as my guide. Again, no pattern, no transfer lines. More like doodling with needle and thread. I finished with some small cross stitches and straight stitches.

With some white socks and skinny jeans, I'm ready to go. Easy peasy.


Happy embroidery! :)

Mixed Media Tags with Crochet, Free Motion Stitching & Doodles

Crochet. Free motion sttiching. Doodling. What could be better?
Here's how I did it.

Crochet 3 small rings. (Here's the pattern for the rings.)

Adhere them with spray adhesive onto shipping tags. Free motion stitch the tails to the bottom edge of tags.


Free motion stitch flower shapes around the crochet.

Add doodling with markers.


Super cute and unique gift tags ready to be personalized and attached to gifts.

Easy peasy.

Happy creating!

Crocheted, Doodled & Free Motion Stitched Brown Paper Bag Gift Tutorial

For me, the best part of getting a gift ready to give is packaging it in new and unique ways. Here's how I wrapped this gift for a friend.

To start crochet ring: With pink cotton yarn and size F crochet hook ch 3, join with sl st in first ch to make a ring
Round 1: Ch 1, 10 sc in ring, join with sl st in first sc.
Fasten off. With tapestry needle, weave in starting tail.
Cut a brown grocery bag into two square pieces.
Adhere the crochet to the paper with a small amount of spray adhesive.
Free motion stitch around the edge of the crochet and add stitched petals. (To free motion stitch, lower feed dogs and use a daring foot on your machine.)

Free motion stitch words with brown thread.
Add doodling with black marker and white gel pen.

Place the stitched piece on top of the other piece of brown paper and stitch the sides and bottom.
Insert gift into the bag and stitch the top closed.

Free Motion Quilted Memory Game Tutorial

You remember playing the memory card game, right? Here's a set that I made using free motion quilting and watercolors.

First you free motion quilt a bunch of circles with a sandwich of muslin, batting, muslin, cut them out, and color them with watercolors. You want to make sure that you use one color to paint a pair of circles so that you have two blues, two reds, two yellows, etc.

Here's how the circles look before they are cut and colored.

Let them dry and then flip them so that the colors are facing the table and start playing the memory game. Hmmm ... I wonder where that other blue circle was ...

Put them in a little pouchy pouchy or embellished box to store or give away as a gift.

Happy creating. :)

Baker's Twine Embroidery Tutorial

Check out my cute little embroidered heart. The heart looks like I used Baker's Twine, huh? But it isn't. Because think about it. If I were to have used Baker's Twine, there isn't a stitch that could be used to have the final product actually look like continuous Baker's Twine. There would be breaks in the twine as it made its way in and out of the fabric. So here's how I did it:

First, I drew a heart with a water-soluble fabric marker and then stitched the heart with white perle cotton using a running stitch.

Next, I took red perle cotton and pulled it up and then wove it through the first white running stitch, from the inside of the heart.

Then I went into the next running stitch, again from the inside of the heart.

I did this over and over until the heart was complete. And then I took a damp cloth to dab the fabric to erase the pen marks.

I have a feeling this piece will become a part of a larger piece. I wuv it.

Happy embroidery. :)

Fat Quarter Defined

During my time at Inspired, I picked up some wonderful goodies ... like these scrumptious little fat quarters. Aren't they pretty?

But it dawned on me recently, when I was talking with a friend who is just getting started in the world of creativity, that not everyone knows what a fat quarter is. So I thought I'd take this post to provide a simple explanation.

So when you go to the fabric store and you pick out a bolt of fabric that you like and take it to the attendant and ask for a yard of fabric, the attendant will start unrolling the fabric and once she has taken 36 inches of it from the bolt, she'll cut it. And that will give you one yard.

If you were to say to the attendant that you'd like 1/4 of a yard, she would unroll the fabric and cut it at the 9 inch mark and give you a narrow piece of fabric. But the thing is ... there's not really very much you can make with a narrow strip like that.

A fat quarter is cut in a way where the yard of fabric is divided into half and then half again so that you end up with a piece that is 18 x 22 inches ... giving you a piece that has so many possibilities to create fun little projects.

The only thing is that fat quarters aren't usually something you can request at the cutting table. They are pre-cut fabrics that you'll see in little baskets or bins that you can sort through and purchase ...

... which is exactly how these little fat quarters were presented by the vender who was selling them at Inspired. Right now I just enjoy looking at them as I imagine all the possibilities of what they can become with a bit of creative stitching and embellishments.

Happy fat quarters.
Happy creative stitching. :)