As someone who occasionally creates stock designs for embroidery, it’s always fun to see the projects that embroiderers create based on your designs.; This week, I was absolutely amazed at the work shared by my long-time friend in the industry, Jane Swanzy.

Jane is the proprietor of Swan Threads in Houston, Texas, and has won several awards and appeared in countless magazines for her creative use of stock designs, so I was honored to find out that she’d selected the Tribal 3D Heart from my tiny collection at The Only Stitch for her latest personal project outfit. With her usual flair, she took a single motif and made it into a stunning border for the stylish denim skirt meant to stand out as she appears at this year’s Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo School Art Awards.

I would have never thought to use those hearts to make a bold border!

First, here’s a little history about the design itself; In February, the good people of Madeira USA asked me to create a piece to showcase their BodyBuilder 3D foam; as we were approaching Valentine’s Day at the time, it was natural that they wanted a heart motif. The wonderful embroiderer in residence at Madeira USA, Nancy Mini, said that she was looking for something bold and out of the ordinary and let me have free reign; I decided to make this piece a total original and started sketching.

Like I say in my classes, you should draw to help with your designs, but as you can see with the sketch, you don’t have to be a great artist. 😉 I did a lot of alteration to get to that vector.

In the end, I pulled my sketch into Inkscape and came up with the tribal heart design you now see; the team at Madeira ran with it to create their campaign graphics and I put the design up at The Only Stitch; little did I know that Jane was waiting in the wings to create her masterpiece. All of those repeat runs of the tribal heart design, and all puffed up and looking properly sculptural due to the high crown from the 3D foam; I do believe that Jane has now spent more time with my design than I have!

Here’s the finished work for Madeira USA’s Valentine’s Day campaign- Variegated thread makes it pop!

Thanks again to Jane of Swan Threads and again to Madeira USA for the chance to collaborate on the original project. If you want to make your own Tribal Heart piece, you can get your copy for less than a fancy coffee from The Only Stitch; if you do, I’d love to see what you make!

Here’s Jane’s color-way for my 3D Tribal Heart Design!