 slow stitch paperclip. When I'm starting a slow stitch project, I do what you just saw me doing, which is gathering materials and supplies, layering them on top of each other to see what kind of composition I can come up with that I find interesting, which we did here. Then what I do is I start pinning it together, but I do it in a particular way. So I'm going to pin this little white lace doily to the background fabric up here. Then I'm going to pin this bigger butterfly to the circle. I want this little butterfly, maybe like that. I'm going to pin the word to the little butterfly. So the idea is I know how I want it to look when it's done, but I need to take it apart to sew all the layers together because I like to do different stitches on different layers and I think that's more interesting. So what I do now is take a picture and then we're going to start stitching. To start stitching, I'm going to remove this layer and this layer. We're going to start with this layer here and we are going to... this is very white and everything else is... this is the only thing on here besides the word that's white. So does that mean I want to use a white thread or not? I think I'm going to use a slightly off-white embroidery thread. I think that'll be more interesting. So I have a variety of threads and things off to my left. There's a piece cut off of there. I've got some needles I like to use, some preferred needles. Grab this one, this one, this one. Sometimes I separate the floss, sometimes I don't. In this case I think I'm going to separate it into three strands each. I'm gonna need to go get my reading glasses because I don't have them on. Oh, got it. Okay. Alright, so then I'm going to just do a simple stitch. So none of this is hard stitches. We're going to just start with a running stitch. I did put a knot on the back. So come up through the back and go down, up, down. I'm gonna go around the flower center first. You can take that pin out. You don't have to do complicated stitches. You can, of course, if you want to, but you don't have to. This is the fabric I made in the video for the design team in Essie Store shares for the month of April 2020. And as you can see, as I said in that video, that if you just use inks and things, it should be pretty easy to hand stitch through. But if you use paint, it's a little bit more challenging. So as you can see, we used ink and it's stitching very nicely. So the paint makes for a very thick fabric. And that can be difficult to stitch through. I don't always use a bobbin. But if I am having trouble pushing through the fabric, I will break out a bobbin and or a pair of pliers to grab my needle with. Alright, so that's stitched down. So then we're going to up here, do some of these edges. I don't think we're going to do all of them. But I don't want things flopping around too much. So that's all stitched down. And some sometimes when I'm doing slow stitch, if I know I'm probably going to use that color again. I have a lot of needles, so I won't unthread the needle. I'll just set it aside. I am probably not going to need more than that. So I'm going to take the extra thread and put it back on the bobbin. But I will put that by the needle just in case I'm wrong. Alright, so then I want to put this on here sort of like that. I think I'm going to put a pin through the circle background. And I'm going to move this pin down here. So it's only going through the butterfly and not the circle. That way I can flip the butterfly back, stitch the circle down and then put the butterfly back and stitch it down. So now that I've done that, let's center that circle a little bit better. That works. Now, what do I want to stitch the circle with? That's a thing. Maybe I want to use some silk buttonhole twist. This is from an Etsy seller. I'll link her shop in the description below. I am loving stitching with silk buttonhole twist. Let's get a new needle. I need my knife. So we're going to cut off some of this buttonhole twist. So buttonhole twist is a little different from regular sewing thread in that it's a little thicker. And this is made from silk instead of cotton. So it's got a bit of a different texture and a different finish. This is vintage thread. So buttonhole twist is difficult to find brand new. I'm going to use a single strand tie knot at the end. We'll flip our little butterfly friend back. We're going to just do straight stitches here. I'm not going to do anything fancy, although I could. I'm going to come up through the back again. And I'm going to come up in the circle, but then I'm going to go out on the white part like that. I'm going to do that all so your stitches don't have to be straight and even. We're not all about that, right? I like expressive, abstracted things. Messy. Messy makes interesting, right? So just do these kind of stitches all the way around your circle. Now, if your butterfly flopping around is in your way and it's kind of bothering you, if you are sure you can reposition it, just take it off. But if like me, you're not sure you're gonna remember where it is, you can also refer to that picture that you took. But you can just pin it back. I'm gonna actually pin it going the other way. So I don't poke myself. There we go. Going to stitch the circle down all the way around. Stitches don't have to be super close together. But I'm going to do that all the way around and I'll be back. Okay, I got interrupted by family, but that's okay. So before we saw the butterfly on, which I was going to do, I actually have an impulse to do some more stitching on the round circle. So I'm going to take the same turquoise colored buttonhole twist. And one of the things I tend to do is add some texture to the piece. As I'm stitching, and I'll show you what I mean by that. So I add some texture to the piece by with my stitching, not just with the fabric. So I'm going to add some stitches, you could do a random stitch. These are again, these are just little straight stitches. You can do them in a random pattern, you could do them in a particular pattern. I think I'm going to sort of go around in a little bit of a spiral. I'm gonna actually take this butterfly off. Because now he's going to bug me. I'm going to go in here. I'm going to pull the needle back up a little ways away. Make a stitch and do that again. So that's the top of a new stitch, I'm going to go in at the bottom of where I want the bottom of that to be and then poke the needle up a little bit of ways away where I want the new stitch to start. Again, they don't have to be the same size or the same distance apart. We're just adding some texture with the stitches to our circle center. So I'm going to keep doing that and I'll fast forward a bit through the process. You don't have to see me in reality do this because it takes a bit of time. Some of these slow stitch pieces take about six hours to do. Especially if I add seed beads and things to them, which I do more often than not. Oops. But you can see what that does to the piece that adds some like visual interest there. So I'm going to keep going and I'll be right back. I've got the center sewn down. So that's what I mean about creating some more visual interest at the stitches. And they're just little straight stitches in a sort of semi random pattern. So now we're going to work on the butterfly. I positioned him right about there. Not to hold him down. Now I'm going to use this another spool of vintage sewing thread. This is a vintage cotton coats and Clark cotton thread. And in this yellow color, it's not the exact yellow of our background, but there are hints of this yellow color in the background. So I want to use that to sew our butterfly down. Again, we are going to come up through the bottom at one end or one corner. And I am going to go back down. There we go. And then I'm going to back up through the bottom about here. Then I'm going to go back down at the top of the stitch I already made. And I'm going to go up here about there. And then again, go back down this top of the stitch I already made. This is called back stitch. It's just straight stitches. You could do the other straight stitch, which is called a running stitch, which is how we attached the flower. This makes more of a line. If you hear car doors opening, it's because my daughter is in the driveway loading her car up with stuff. I've got the window open because it's a beautiful warm spring day. So we're going to do this back stitch all the way around to sew our butterfly down. Again, I'm not being too careful about sizes of the stitches to make sure they're all the exact same size. You could of course, but I like sort of the hand done appearance of having the stitches be irregular, having the edges of the fabric be just raw and unfinished. That's me. You do as much on it as you feel is going to make you happy to turn the corner. I'm going to go up about here and then go back down at the top of that little stitch we made right there. Alright, so I'm going to do that all the way around and I'll be right back. Okay, so that's what it looks like at the moment. Now we're going to go with our other butterfly and figure out where he should go. Maybe right about there. Maybe there. Yeah, I think right about there. So we're going to stitch him down. I'm going to actually use the same thread yellow. I think this thread came out of my grandmother sewing box. Sorry about that. Okay, so I attached the other butterfly here in the corner with the same kind of back stitch. And I just did two little small straight stitches on either side of the board. And we could mount this to the wood for the paperclip now but I do think I want to add some beads. So let me get some out and I'll be right back. Okay, I put all the other colored thread and needles away. Let's move out a little bit. There we go. And I've got some the seed beads and colors I want to use on this project. And then I've got special this is beading thread and a beading needle. And I don't know if you can see like the needle is literally like the size of hair can be difficult to thread. But it fits through such teeny tiny seed beads really easily. So yeah, this part you might want to skip if you're not familiar with seed beads and beading. If you have a beading store near you that has that the appropriate needles and thread to do this, you could give it a try. Seed beads aren't expensive. I have them because I used to do a lot of seed beading. So I'm going to take out a little bit of each one of my colors that I want to use. This is a baby spoon, by the way, I believe it's one of Rebecca's baby spoons, my daughter works and great for beads. Keep the colors separately. So whatever I don't use can be put back. Okay, so we're going to take our needle, which has a little bit of thread on it already. So we'll use up what's on here, tied in a knot. Maybe there we go. Alright, so just like before, I'm going to come up through the bottom into part of the flower center. I'm going to grab one of each one of at least three of these colors, four colors I have out and then go back down around the same place I came up in. Then I'm going to just do it again randomly. Choose the other little bit darker yellow this time. Oops, I'm going to just do that around the flower center, and I'll be right back. We're center beaded. But what I'm going to do is go around the exposed parts. So I move the thread down here. I'm going to pick up one yellow. Now when you're first learning how to seed bead, I don't recommend that you just have them on a table. I usually use actually a velour mat or some kind of a piece of felt or something. They pop off in crazy directions less often. You have more control in picking them up. But if they do pop off in some crazy direction, you'll probably never find it. So just don't try. So then I'm going to go back down. Then I'm going to go up near that last bead right there. And then I'm going to pick up three more beads. I'm not going to pick up the blue this time and just going to stick with the white and the two yellows. And I'm going to just go like that all the way around. I'll be back. So as I go around the flower petals, you can see why I usually add seed beads. The beads help tie it all together and the beads along with the embroidery and other stitching and the fabric textures and colors just add visual interest to the piece and complete the fabric collage, right? So I'm going to keep stitching all around and then we're going to get it made into a paperclip. I'll be right back. Okay, when you're working on a project like this, working with seed beads can be frustrated at frustrating at best, but in my opinion, it's well worth it for the finished product. And and you know what? I enjoyed it for me. It's very relaxing. I usually just turn up the music and there's a straight bead. I turn it I turn up the music and I just start stitching and it's true with the beadwork and the embroidery for me. You don't have to of course do the beadwork. But I just think it adds an extra flare now. Maybe all of this stitching is just not your bag. You could try a fabric collage and just glue everything. And you could use instead of beads, you could use glitter glue or something like that. Of course you could. But the idea is to use what you have to make something interesting. So now we're going to turn this into a fake paperclip. The first thing I want to do is give. Do I want to give our friend extra or do I want him to just be floppy? I think I want him to just be floppy. So one thing I do want to use is I want to use glue that's fabric friendly and not too watery because we have some water soluble ink in this background fabric that we created as inspiration because I wanted to use something yellow. I didn't have anything that was the right color in my stash. So I created it. If you want to know how I did that, go watch this video here that I'll link in the description below. And if I can remember if you want to know how I created it, watch the link for the video on creating the fabric in the description below. So okay, I've got some fabric tack. I need something to attach the paperclip with, which means I need a little strip of tieback, which is somewhere and there it is right there. Okay, so I need a little strip of tieback. This is a piece of a priority mail tieback envelope, which is a little stronger than regular paper. I like to use these on the back on the paperclip part, which I think we're going to do that first. I usually just use tacky glue for this, but we'll try it with the fabric tack, which is getting really thick and chunky and I kind of need to use it up anyways. See what I mean? It's like really hard to get out. I'm feeling this is going to get messy, so oh yeah. That was the understatement of the century, so that tells me the lids clogged in a major way. So let's just put a whole bunch of that on there. I've got how much this stuff stinks. This glue is not watery, so it shouldn't do too much of absorbing into the fabric and ruin that fabric background. It's a very gel-like. Put this on here. Push it down. Push everything down. Push it down. Push it in. Straighten out the paperclip. We're going to put some clips while it dries to hold everything in place. We're going to on this particular piece because we're using fabric. I'm going to put some clips on the corners to hold the corners down too. Oops. So I'm going to let that set and dry and I'm going to clean up the mess I made and I'll be back. That's it for today. Don't forget to stay safe, stay healthy, stay creative, and go out and do something nice for yourself because you deserve it. I do appreciate your support here on Patreon very much and it is invaluable right now in this time and day and age. I can't even tell you. There are some sales going on in the Etsy shop and I will be having coupon codes coming soon for patrons only so wash out for those and that's it for now. I'll see you later. Bye guys.