Wild Olive Stitch Swap

Last month, I joined an embroidery hoop swap at wild olive. When I signed up, I provided some colors and things I like. I got this information about someone else, and whipped up a four inch ready to hang embroidery hoop based on those likes. And someone else should sending me a surprise package in the mail! My partner’s identity is a secret until she receives the package, but until then I thought I’d share what I made.

I’m especially pleased with the little heart between the two birds – its made with a bit of the green thread and a bit of the blue thread wrapped together.

Along with the embroidery hoop, I made a little zipper pouch to send my partner as well. Its a ribbon surrounded by a zipper so that it zips up into this tetrahedron pouch. I used this tutorial (found via pinterest, of course) to make this pouch out of a 20 inch zipper and a 20 inch piece of ribbon. Even with the great instructions, it was still a bit difficult to figure out how to wrap up the ends of the zipper, but I’m very pleased with how it turned out. I happened to get a 10 gallon bag full of a variety of colorful zippers for about $10 this summer from a craigslist listing, so I had plenty of zippers to choose from 🙂

Here’s the full embroidery hoop (with some information that would give away my partner’s identity conveniently hidden by the zipper pouch). I painted the outside hoop brown to match the branch with acrylic paint. I also used a pretty green floral print to finish of the back of the hoop.

I had a surprisingly great time whipping this embroidery hoop up. Now I just need to send these guys off to my partner 🙂 And I can’t wait to get my surprise package in the mail!