Inspiration for Embroidery Designs

Hi everyone:

Last week I gave you a peek at the latest embroidery design that I'm working on. I've done more on the sample now, so I can show you more of it. I think it looks quite elegant and stately (I was working on it while watching House of Cards) and I thought you might be interested as to the inspiration for this design.

Art Deco Embroidery design by Chatterbox Quilts

I love to drink tea, especially Chai tea and I can often be found with a cuppa next to me while working in my studio. I was opening up a new box of Tazo Chai tea and noticed the lovely scroll design on the interior of the box. Wouldn't this look nice as an embroidery design? Of course it would? And off I went.

Design on interior of Tazo tea box

I envisioned using neutrals for this design and had the perfect shade of copper in a Tencel thread to use for it. I guess it's close to tea colour, so maybe that's why I went in this direction. 

Tazo tea box interior and Tencel thread

I'm using a linen look fabric for the background and I think I'll be adding some yo-yos to it for some extra texture. Plus I have some Michael Miller Fairy Frost fabric (try saying that quickly!) in a copper shade that I've been hoarding for some time. I think it's going to be perfect on this project.

Yo-yo made from Michael Miller Fairy Frost in copper

I also have a lovely turquoise batik that I think would look nice as a smaller yo-yo on top of the larger copper one. I haven't yet made these up, but have cut out the fabric so I can use my Clover quick yo-yo makers.

Batik fabric would be perfect on top of copper yo-yo

Here's what the design looks like - in a reduced format. The magenta circles represent the yo-yos. 

Art Deco embroidery pattern printed at reduced size

I don't like having to enlarge my patterns, so I printed this out in a tile format and then taped it together with Scotch removable tape. This is what it looks like taped together at full size.

Art Deco embroidery pattern full size

I traced the lines onto the background fabric with my Frixion pen and then started stitching. 

I hope to finish this design soon and I'll let you know when it will be available on my Chatterbox Quilts website.

Where do you find your inspiration?