Embroidered Children's Drawings

This is an embroidery of one of my son's drawings when he was about five, I think. He chose the colors and I did the embroidery. I love his big smile and nose, his dancing feet and wing-like arms. I want to incorporate it into something but I haven't decided what yet, maybe a pillow. If you don't want to bother transfering one of your child's drawings to fabric then just give him/her a temporary transfer marker to draw directly onto the fabric that you'll be embroidering. The tighter the weave on the fabric then the smoother the line will be. You can get marking pens that disappear over time or with a dab of water so it's easy to correct mistakes. We did this for Halloween one time, you can see the result here.

Comments

[Tara Thornton]

I have just come across this page by accident and absolutely love your embroidered piece of your sons drawing!!!
i am attending london college of fashion and my new term project is "primitive, naive or childlike depictions of the human figure" and then we have to embroider childrens drawings of the human figure! i was just wondering if you have done anymore that you could send me to my email address so that i can add them to my project as research, obviously with your name and info.
I know it is a strange thing to ask, but it would be amazingly helpful and really inspiraring.
Thank you ever so much and hope to hear from you very soon.
Tara

[Joy]

that is beautiful!

[Kristin]

Thank you for this wonderful idea! My dd just started drawing these Seuss-like characters with wildly swirly hair (and, of course, arms sticking out their heads.) She'll love it if I embroider one.

[molly]

cassi, i'm just catching up on my blog reading after the move. you have so many cute things going on and some great ideas to share! I love the idea of having your children draw directly on the fabric to be embroidered! I might have to try that soon with emma.
(and your miniswap stuff looks wonderful. what lucky little kiddos!)

[rose]

Very cute! I wish I would have thought of this when my son was small.

[Pam]

You make the most adorable things! Do you ever make little toys for cats to play with? Hee...I don't have any kids!!! you could stuff some with catnip....! What an awesome idea for the children's artwork! I love it! I remember the tea towels you did from the kid's drawings! Kids are unfettered! They create cool stuff! Thank you for sharing ! Pam

[mrspilkington]

very cute! you probably already know jacqueline enthoven's "stitchery for children"...such a wonderful book, i get new ideas and make big plans for my daughter every time i look at it:)

[kali]

What a fab idea ~ such a precious keepsake.
You both make a wonderful team!

[lulu]

Wow, wow, wow! Why haven't I ever thought of that? [hitting self on head]
Thank you so much for sharing! And please tell your son that his art work is just too cute for words! That little birdie guy is a masterpiece!

[debra]

What a fabulous idea!! I love incorporating my kids' pictures in my artwork, but embroidery never occured to me. Thanks for the inspiration! I'm definitely going to have to try that.

[laura r.]

that is great collaboration!

[Gillian Greding]

I about passed out at how GORGEOUS those Halloween dish towels are! Seriously, I won't sleep tonight thinking about them! :) Note to self: head to target immediately... buy dish towels in Easter colors... have kids draw on them... embroider away! Thanks so much for your inspriation!

[Snowbear]

something to put in my bag of tricks--thanks! The three year old hasn't made anything that interesting yet--but there's hope to make an artist out of him yet.
The Halloween stuff was real cute btw.

[Creative Kismet]

What a wonderfully precious idea!! The dancing little guy is pretty cute! He'd would be adorable on a pillow!

[michelle]

I love this! My son just drew is first representational picture (he's 3) and it's the baby that's currently in my tummy. Can't wait to do projects like this.

[Chris Howard]

Oh, I love the childhood embroidery idea. I've been branching out from my one "true love" (cross stitch) to embroidery lately via the neat-o patterns at Sublime Stitching. I don't have any children, but maybe I could try my hand at drawing some freestyle images and embroidering those. I especially love the halloween towels- they are beyond cute!!
What stitch did you do for the animal's legs? I didn't recognize that one...

[Adriana]

What an adorable idea.

[sally]

This is so sweet!

[Kim]

What a cute idea! I'm clipping this and saving it for later!

[PJ]

What a wonderful idea! To capture something that will be quickly gone is fantastic! Good work! -for BOTH of you :) What a way to show you care! Your list of craft books is simply yummy though I've only done one crewal project in my life...inspirational!

[apricot]

I made cushion with my daughter's drawing a year ago, when she was 4 years old.

http://apricotsays.ciao.jp/blog/archives/2005/06/cushion.php

We cannot keep every art work they make every day, even if we want to. But in this way, they become good keepsake :).

[Gina L]

What a great idea. I have keep several of my children crayon pictures, but they are just in a box, I may have to pick a few of my favorite ones and embroidery them.

[scout]

That is sooooo cute!

[gkgirl]

that is too cute.

my daughter wants to try embroidering also so i may
try that idea with the marker
for her...thanks!

:)

[Shelly]

I have started to do this with my boys artwork for Nanna presents. My mom LOVES Them!