Country Garden Stitchery

I was working with greens the other day making greeting cards for women family and friends. I added one of my hydrangea drawings and I liked how the green in the leaf blended with the background scrolls. I found myself in a mood to sew and made this tulip garden hand embroidery design into a table runner with some really bright summery fabrics. I like using several colors in my embroidery designs so when I add fabrics it picks up most of the colors and makes the whole project really interesting to look at, grabs your attention!

I'm happy to have my new butterflies design done finally. I found some nice and bright fabric to frame it with. It's a fun design to stitch with a little back stitching and French knots for textile interest. I really like doing French knots, like them better than attaching beads. Here's one of my new angel greeting cards I've been working on. She has a similar colorway as my cross stitch design so I wanted to include her in this post. Plus she's really happy. Hope you have a good week!

I selected four of my fabric samples to make a set of placemats with the sample in the center. I used commercial fabrics built up around it to make a placemat. This sample is Blue Lilacs and Columbines and I scalloped the edges with a rotary cutter. This sample is Forget Me Not which is from a watercolor painting and has similar values of blue on a white background. This is one of my first fabric samples Purple Pansy Watercolor and it prints really well with deep royal purple flowers and a light watercolor wash behind the flowers. This is a drawing study of a white windflower in different stages of growth with watercolor wash. The whole set goes together pretty well I thought and I tried to find fabrics of the same value of blue with green accents of similar shades. I set these on the table during the day and take them off before our meals so I can save them for a while, the family can eat on older stained ones :)

This is a post about pink things, even though it's Fourth of July weekend, I'm feeling pink. I used several paintings and drawings in this note card to make it a collage style. It's fun to be able to use art I did years ago in new ways and new projects. When Spoonflower had free shipping last week I took advantage of that and ordered thirty more fabrics that I had been working on. This is part of my pink collection in my shop . This is a photo of them outside. I took it at the wrong time of day, but I still thought the colors looked nice and vibrant. And this photo was taken inside. I'm still deciding what I want to make, most likely a quilt runner or finish a pink needlework design in a runner. Haven't been in the mood to sew lately with these hot days. I would rather be outside at the lake in my kayak... Hope you have a great 4th of July weekend.