Doodlebroidery: your child's drawings transformed into fabric keepsakes

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What a week for firsts! The blog is up and running (Huzzah!) and now a whole new product to reveal... 

My crazy kitchen whiteboard  :o)

With Christmas drawing ever closer, I've been plagued (as usual) by concerns about what to give some people as gifts. Last year we started a new Secret Santa tradition with one half of the family: my Mum, her partner, my sister and brother-in-law and me and The Husband all go in the hat and are drawn to buy for only one other adult. If you draw yourself or your partner, lucky you - it only makes the buying more fun! So that reduced the number of adults I needed to by for by three. My Dad's side of the family have all agreed that we adults won't buy for one another any more either, and instead we just buy presents for the Small People. (Nanna and Grandad are the exceptions to this rule - they deserve treats and pampering at Christmas!) This opting out of presents lark has meant I really have very few adults to buy for now. It's a bit of a shame really, because I genuinely love the whole process of thinking about what each person might like to receive and then searching for the perfect gift within budget. I kind of feel as though I'm missing out on the fun bit. Not to worry though, because we still give small gifts from the children to their grandparents...it feels odd otherwise! This still doesn't mean that I'll be hitting the High Street though - it would be a bit hypocritical from someone who's trying to make a living from selling handmade gifts! No, instead we try to get the children (who will be four, two and a rather large bump of unknown gender this Christmas) to spend time making presents for others. I'm also joining in this year and giving handmade gifts wherever I can. I pledged earlier in the year that I would try to stick to a minimum of half of the gifts I give being handmade; I’ve already ordered handmade for my little sister’s birthday too, so I’m right on track! (Hmmm, when should you stop calling your little sister "little?")

In the past the children have given painted mugs, calendars and homemade chocolates, but I got a bit stumped this year. I’ve spent quite a bit of time over the last month or so pondering the direction of Hop Stitch Jump and Sock Monsters. I’m not sure how long Sock Monsters will continue – I enjoy making them and they’re very fashionable right now, but the market seems to be getting saturated by makers of sock creatures in various guises – so I’ve needed to consider where the rest of the business might go. I’ve been compiling a list of “possible” products that I can develop and I’ve worked on samples of a few. One has really stood out, though and I’ve been itching to get stuck in. 

Since my eldest started Nursery in a school, her drawing has come on in leaps and bounds and she comes home from school clutching at least two new pictures every day. Thankfully I have a five foot magnetic whiteboard in my kitchen, which gives me quite a bit of display space, but I have been racking my brains trying to come up with a way to transform my absolute favourites into something new that will last longer than the paper versions. I’ve been a fan of the work of Wendy Tsao of Child’s Own Studio for a while and I’m inspired by her fabulous work turning children’s drawings into soft toys – go see, go now! And more recently I came across Scribble and Stitch, whose work is equally lovely. I love the idea of giving the pictures a whole new life, but I wanted to be able to share the drawings in a medium that would make nice gifts for adults too, and help me with my Christmas gift dilemma! With that in mind, I decided that machine embroidering the pictures would be the way to go for me, giving more versatility for my end product.

"Mrs Spittle and a rainbow"

And ta-daaah! Here are the first three fruits of my new “Doodlebroidery” range. I really have enjoyed turning these drawings into something that I think is pretty blooming special. I can’t tell you how much I hope this will take off, because I know I’ll never tire of working with children’s drawings.  

The first Doodlebroidery - on an apron :o)

The first piece of Doodlebroidery was "Mrs. Spittle with a rainbow," drawn by my four-year-old daughter for her teacher, and embroidered onto an apron to give as a Christmas gift. I especially like how she has three fingers on one hand and four on the other! I also hope there's not too much offence taken by my girl's choice of grey for her teacher's very blonde hair, and I wouldn't have gone for the combination of the coral apron with the orange she used for detail on the face, but hey, her teacher and her choice! :o) I'm pretty sure that Mrs. Spittle doesn't follow my blog, so I think we should be safe until Christmas ;o)

I hadn’t realised how much my budding artist would love to see her artwork on fabric. Well, I wasn’t so much the seeing of it; she was thrilled to be able to feel her work! “Oh Mummy, I love feeling my drawing on Mrs. Spittle’s apron!” I had forgotten for a while just how tactile children like to be with the new things that they encounter, and the slightly raised stitches must have added an extra dimension to her drawing! 

"Flowers for Nan"

Nan's shopping bag

Next up was a much more simple but very striking picture of flowers that my girl drew earlier in the year for her Nan (my Little Nanna). Now, Nan is pretty lucky that she has a full time man in the kitchen in the shape of my Grandad, so she doesn’t have much call for an apron, and she has a surprisingly clutter-free house for someone of her generation, so I was a bit unsure what to embroider this picture on to. We had a little chat about the things that Nan likes to do and we both came up with the same answer – she loves to shop! From there it was a no-brainer and I got stitchy with a lightweight, foldable cotton shopping bag that she could fit into her handbag. Before it was translated onto the bag, Beatrix asked me to swap the colour of the stalk and the head on the penultimate flower because she was so cross with herself for jumbling her colours up!

"Team Knowles"

I have to admit to being a little contrived with this next image. This Doodlebroidery lark was getting to be a bit of an addiction, and I couldn't wait for the next masterpiece to get my teeth into transforming onto fabric, so I asked my girl to draw me a picture of our family so that I could embroider and frame it for the wall. She set to work straight away drew the grass, the sky and then the family, working from right to left, which threw me a bit! The first figure on the right is her little brother Jasper, then herself, then me complete with a baby in my tummy, and finally Daddy. She drew the sunshine last, sat and looked at it for a minute and then gave it a smiley face too, something I haven’t seen her do before. For me as a Mummy, this is the ultimate family portrait, and I couldn’t wait to get it embroidered and framed. I love how each of the drawings of us has little differences - Jasper doesn't have toes, Daddy doesn't even have feet and he's the only one with blue hair, and Beatrix has sooo many fingers and toes! I am intrigued by my fancy finger nails,too – I can’t remember the last time I painted them in real life!

The short version of this tale is that Doodlebroidery has worked and I love it! No computerised scanning or printed transfers or technologically advanced sewing machine that embroiders straight from an email. Just an original masterpiece, me and my little machine, a free motion embroidery foot and a whole lot of fun create these works of art.

And so our tradition of handmade gifts from the children can continue! All I have to do now is think of something each of their grandparents would like to receive and we’re rocking and rolling. I can’t wait – I love wrapping the presents and distributing them on the run to Christmas. I love even more that we have started our own little traditions that I hope we’ll see every year for a long time: our Christmas Eve pantomime, the tradition from my own childhood of the cold buffet-style Christmas Eve tea, the Christmas Eve present box that we give the children with new pyjamas, bubbles for the bath, Christmas story books, a DVD and a soft toy and then visiting the neighbours with yummy treats. We’ve only lived in this house a couple of months, and I’m not sure how our new neighbours will react to our little family tradition of visiting them with homemade treats on Christmas Eve! We don’t do this because I’m twee and all “suburban wife”, but because it’s a nice, neighbourly thing to do. We all enjoy the hype built up by walking to the few houses closest to us and chatting about what that night and then Christmas morning will bring, and it helps to remind the children that aside from the “real” religious meaning of Christmas, the other major theme is giving. 

Two questions for you now I’ve reached the end: firstly, do you give handmade gifts? And do you have any family traditions at Christmas? I’d love to know! 

Catherine :o)