You have heard of the Happy Stones? It is a new phenomenon that is very hot in the UK, The Netherlands, Belgium… Make Happy Stones with the embroidery machine.

You’re not sure what it is? People embellish stones, mostly painted. They put them somewhere in a public place, where other people can find them and place somewhere else. The fun thing is the maker can follow the stones journey in a Facebook page. They are made for different areas. People who find them make a picture, and post it in the FB community. The maker can find his or her stones through the hashtags. So my group is ‘Happy Stones WVL (#WVL)’ and my name is #BRC. 

You are going to start it too? Be sure to check if your chosen name doesn’t belong to someone else yet.

Make Happy Stones with the embroidery machine.

I’m working on the BERNINA 700

BERNINA 700

The B 700 convinces with many new, innovative functions such as the pinpoint placement. Moreover, this embroidery machine comes with many embroidery patterns.

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Collect some suitable stones. Don’t take them too small, finishing the fabric is difficult in a smaller size. I thought mine were a bit small. And the bigger the stones, the easier they will be seen.

I made the file in BERNINA Embroidery Software 8 How to choose the size? My stones have a longer shape, I made up a circle that could go around the stone on its shortest side (for a stone measured 6,5 x 4,25 cm my circle was 10 cm, so 4,5 + 4,5 + a little extra for the heigth).

BERNINA Embroidery Software 8

The new BERNINA Embroidery Software 8 includes a whole new range of new features and 3D effects for unique surface embellishments.

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I chose a funny clipart with contrasting lines and digitized it into an embroidery file. It was an exact fit for the Medium hoop

Medium hoop

The Medium embroidery hoop is a useful tool for the accurate embroidering of medium-sized projects with the BERNINA embroidery machine.

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I added the text, so the finder will know how to tag me and in which group. Don’t forget the hashtag.

Copy the circle into a zigzag line. It is useful instead of zigzagging on the sewing machine afterwards. Don’t consider it to be a full satin stitch like you would do appliqué.

Embroidering for the Happy Stones:

Supplies:

• Find a small scrap of cotton fabric, big enough to hoop, or choose for the floating option, like I did.
• Mettler Poly Sheen embroidery thread
• Sewing thread.
• Any stabilizer

Hoop the stabilizer.

Embroider the file.

Cut out, close to the zigzag stitch.

Finishing the project:

Fold the fabric round the stone. Sew it by hand, while pulling the fabric as close to the stone as you can.

I will lay them in town center, near the fountain on Market Place, it is a busy place. I’m sure they will be found. So curious where they will travel! You see it is possible to mMake Happy Stones with the embroidery machine.