Country Garden Stitchery

The weather lately has made me think of warm summer breezes and drying laundry on the line. Bright linens swaying softly on a summer afternoon with fluffy clouds in the sky. And leaves waving in the wind. I enjoy looking at all the different shades of green on the trees and other foliage during the summer. So many different shades and they change with the time of day. Happy Memorial Day.

Does you have a bake shop where you live? I don't, but think it would be heavenly. A shop dedicated just to sweet treats and maybe coffee and bistro tables to sit for a bit. Cute displays and dishes of truffles and other colorfully wrapped candies. Inches high icing on the cupcakes... that was the idea I had when designing this pattern. Makes my mouth water. I am very excited with my dianthus. I planted several dianthus flowers a few years ago and they come back every year bigger, fuller and bursting with flowers in the spring and they last a very long time too. I have lots of pink, one white and a red. I like their independence and no fuss manner, just give them room and they will grow. I wanted to give you a little preview of one of my Halloween/Autumn designs. I wanted to do black pumpkins, I thought it would look interesting so we will see. I love Weeks Dye Works flosses. I did get some samplings of Valdini flosses the other day in autumn colors and have a des...

Have you read Laura Child's Tea Shoppe Mystery books? They are fun to read. I've read "Death by Darjeeling" and "Shades of Earl Gray". This little tea cozy kit uses pretty pinks of Weeks Dye Works Flosses and pink Jobelan fabric. "Time for Tea" has lots of little teapots with dainty flowers in shades of periwinkle and lavender. These tea cozy kits are small and fit a small teapot with tea enough for one. "Teapots in Blue" with many shades of blue and pink flowers dancing about. This tea cozy kit fits a medium teapot for when you are having tea with a friend. Today is a great day for tea and a cozy mystery. We had snow last night and it is very cold today, my newly planted flowers are a little droopy today.

I have been very drawn to orange lately and saw these bright orange pansies at the nursery over the weekend and got them for my little planter. I planted them with tiny royal purple petunia type flowers that are supposed to spread and bloom beautifully, I will let you know how they do... Driving downtown yesterday we happened upon a flea market by chance (I love when that happens :) and I found this hand embroidered kitchen dishcloth. Again, I really liked the orange and I always like pink. It is now hanging on my stove handle and I am inspired to embroider some towels myself, but I think I would like to try some linen towels. I love linen. I have a little country embroidery pattern set I am working on. I just finished the sheep last night while watching the last episode of Survivor and being thankful Russel did not win. Anyway, one more in this set which is a little cottage. I am planning on putting red fabrics with these designs, I've used a lot of little red flower...

I started a little row house embroidery last evening while watching "Shanghai Noon" and laughing with Owen Wilson and their excursion to Carson City, although their Carson City landscape doesn't match ours... In this embroidery I am using some Gentle Art Sampler colors I haven't used before - Summer Shower is a very soft muted blue and Currant. I have my favorites I use all the time so I am trying to widen my color range a bit. I received these floss samples the other day and am thinking of designs to use with them, autumn designs. The Gloriana silks are full of color and shimmer in the light. I love working with silk, a luxury for me. I love Anita Shreve novels. I've read these two books before, but they were library copies and I decided I'd like to have my own copies. I am finding myself wanting to keep nice copies of my favorite books; with all the technology advancement it makes them seem more special to me. I found a little frame for my ACEO painting ...

I found all of my spring colored fabrics and sorted through them to pick the best to finish this lollipops runner. I really like the bright cheerful colors, different shapes and patterns. I finished the edges with pinking shears and each end with my scallop rotary cutter. I used a light green thread and a fancy zigzag stitch on my machine to quilt "in the ditch" between fabric strips. Worked up nicely. This was one of my free patterns last year and I decided to finish it as a runner also with various pink fabrics to go with the theme of breast cancer awareness. A touch of spring green in there to balance things out. I finished my sweet pea bookmark also. I embroidered the pattern on some very soft green floral fabric using hand dyed silk flosses in lavender and sky blue for the sweet pea flowers. Evergreen shades for the stems. Dark royal purples for the little tiny flowers at the bottom.