Country Garden Stitchery

I've been wanting to embroider a hot air balloon for some time now and was finally inspired by the dark gloomy days (and news) to do something bright and colorful.  I gathered a handful of the most colorful fabric scraps from my scrap drawer and surrounded the embroidery with them to make a little patchwork pillow.  It was a fun project and brightened my day. I also stocked up on some towels over the summer on my various visits to shops here and there.  Now I'm beginning to embroider them with some tea inspired designs.  I love these Dunroven House towels.  I found them at a quilt shop and bought three of them and now thinking I need more.  They are really nice, hightly recommend them!     Some more fabric scrap ideas for you.  Save those small pieces!  I save all mine that are at least 2" square.  You can do something with them :)  I made some little pincushion scissor fobs and embroidered little designs...

I designed a set of birthday greeting cards with birth month flowers and was inspired to make needlecase patterns from the same idea.  I thought they'd make nice birthday gifts or to make one for your own birthday month.  The idea came late this year so I'm just getting this one out for January.  I hope to be more on schedule for the rest of the months throughout 2013.     The inside view.  I've been putting just one piece of fabric for pockets but thought I'd try two with this needlecase so there are a total of four pockets.  I like this better.  This pattern comes with finishing instructions.  Hopefully it will be in your local needlework shop soon and I'll have it in my shops before too long.  Last weekend we had our fifth annual Christmas Fine Art and Craft fair here in Fallon and it was really fun with lots of really neat items.  We hold it in our old post office that has been renovated and is the pe...

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving holiday weekend (US readers :)  Last week I made some more needlebooks from my Spoonflower fabrics.  I also made some beaded scissor fobs with different color themes and charms at the end.  Now I need to think about making some more fabrics to  have some new samples to work with in 2013.    I also made some pinnies for our local Christmas craft fair in a couple weeks.  These have some of my fabric samples in them too.  They are fun to make and cheerful little gifts.  I've also designed a cross stitch pattern for January birthdays that I will be starting soon and hope to have a preview for you next week. 

I've put together some redwork embroidery tea towel kits in my Etsy Shop and have three Christmas redwork kits available now.  They come with the towel, hand dyed floss from The Gentle Art and the pattern.  Quick and fun projects.     I love these linen guest towels.  They are easy to embroider and look nice on display too.  I used one strand of floss to embroider the snowman design since it is an intricate design and was worried it would look to crowded and undefined with two.   I have a collection of tea towels I made this year so will plan on making kits for all of them.  Fun little projects that make nice gifts too.  I'm still working on some things for our local craft show next month.  These are little notebook covers with pockets that hold a small tablet and pen.  A little smaller than the composition notebook cover.  Something different.  Spoonflower is having free shipping today throug...

I've put together some embroidery kits for beginning stitchers or anyone who would like to try a sampling of different fabrics and flosses to embroider with.  They have several pieces of different fabrics, several types of flosses and a collection of little embroidery patterns to try.  All of it is put in a patchwork tote so they make nice gifts!   I've been making some needlebooks for the holidays using my Spoonflower fabrics.  They have pockets inside and felt pages.  Cheerful little gifts!  For our local craft show in December I've been making a little of this and a little of that.  I love to make covered journals using composition books.  Fun to "fussy-cut" fabrics and frame them in with other fabrics.  This one was made with the fun fruit ladies fabric.  So cute. 

We took a daytrip to visit several antique shops last weekend and I found a few books (I like to collect older books and found a great Alfred Hitchcock story collection) and these neat 1950s Workbasket magazines.  I like older magazines that have the hand drawn ads and illustrations.  Reminds me of Darrin Stephens in Betwitched hand drawing his ad campaigns.  Did you watch that show?  I still love it.    I've been making purses lately and made a few Princess Purses  with this pattern from Moda Bakeshop.  It is so cute and very easy!  Cute for little girls.   I've also made a selection of frame purses for our Christmas Craft show using frames from WhileBabyNaps   they have great directions and supplies.  I love making them.  At first I was a little nervous putting the frames on but they get easier the more you make.    I like making them in different sizes, patterns and c...

I belong to a group of artists and crafters called "The Sagebrush Sisters" and we have festivals every holiday season.  One in the fall and one at Christmas.   Our fall festival was last weekend and was really fun and I think everyone had a great time. We live in a small town so lots of people know each other and one of my favorite things about the show is how people come together after they haven't seen each other in a while, have some hot cider, a cookie or two and catch up.  Fun to see.    This was the first year we had the festival at Workman Farms, one of our local quilt shops/farmer's market.  They had it decorated so nice with lots of pumpkins, gourds, squash, corn stalks, flowers and more.      Lots of creative things for sale.  This picture shows a couple of my favorite items, the witch's hat and boots.  Reallyneat. Glass art and metal work, pottery, woodwork and lots of diffe...

My new Christmas cross stitch design!  I finished it this week with French General fabrics and some vintage lace on the end.  I made a pillowcase for the inside which adds more color to the overall project too.  This design will be released during the online Needlework Show that begins next Thursday on the 18th.  Hope you'll stop by!      I worked with two by two squares on the sides and I really liked doing that.  Starting to get a little more brave with my fabric piecing :) I don't like throwing fabric away so I save very  small pieces and have a drawer full now.  I dumped it out on my floor and color coordinated some of the pieces to make some needlecases in a log cabin style patchwork.  Really fun!   

I'm getting my booth ready for the online needlework show beginning on the 18th.  Here are a couple of the patterns I will have in my booth.  Pumpkin Place is above.  A row of pumpkins in different shades of orange among fall leaves.  I made the model into a long pillow to decorate for autumn.      And Christmas Dress with a row of gifts and a holiday ribbon garland for the holidays. I am almost finished with another cross stitch pattern for the Christmas season and I'll have that one in the show too.  I heard back from Moda Bakeshop on my snowman project and they are going to put it on their site November 17th, very excited!  I'll put a link here so you can easily find it if you want to.    

I have been working on this Christmas gift bag project this week.  I'm hoping it will be accepted to the  Moda Bake Shop site.  I've been wanting to do a tutorial for the site for a while because I love Moda fabrics and use them all the time.  I used French General fabrics for this bag.  If it's not accepted on there then I will put the tutorial on here anyway.  It's a fun quick little project.  You can fill it up with fun things at Christmas time to give to someone special then they can use the bag too!     This is a part of my new design "Give Thanks" that I'm getting ready for the online Needlework show next month.  I'm looking forward to it!  Always love to see all the new designs from everyone.  Hope you'll be able to stop by, it's open 24 hours.    

More needlecases this week!  I used my bicycle fabric in this one that I designed for one of the contests on Spoonflower.  It has pockets on the inside and felt for the needles.   Pink Jellyfish!  Another Spoonflower contest fabric.  I went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium this summer and saw the jellyfish there.  So delicate looking and float so peacefully in the water.  They were neat.  A sewing notions fabric with those fun tomato pincushions everyone used to have.  Some stork scissors too.  I think all needleworkers should have a pair of stork scissors...  I felt very ambitious last weekend and started this quilt top.  This is the most challenging one to date for me with the diamond pattern and the triangles.  So far so good ~ well there are several seams that don't match up but it still came together okay so I'm not complaining :) Now I need to find the perfect backing fabric for it. ...

Craft show season is coming up so I've been working some little things to have in my booth and in my shops.    I used my Spoonflower Lemons fabric for this one.  It has felt pages inside and some pockets for scissors and other little things. I used one of my embroidery patterns in this fabric and put some watercolor in the flowers. I used Spoonflower Dress Forms fabric for this one.  It has a nice soft pink background. Watercolor fish fabric for this one.  I designed this fabric for one of Spoonflower's contests with the theme of "Sea Creatures".  I used Spoonflower Under the Sea  fabric for this one.  It has a soft blue watercolor background   

New patterns for a new month!  I finished my Autumn Fruit design.  It says "nature sweet autumn fruit".  I like advertisements for fruit, especially those put on boxes and crates from orchards.  Apples are one of my favorite fruits.    I wanted to make some more Christmas ornaments this year.  This is a set of six redwork embroidery ornaments.  I used a different shade of red from the Gentle Art for each one.  On some of them I used just one strand which gives the design a nice lacy look, the snowman was done with one strand throughout.  I mixed it up within the others.      I was one of the lucky designers chosen for the  Norden's Needleworkers  blog feature this month, I'm very excited!  It's really fun to go and read about different designers and shops in the industry.  Nice way to get to know them better.   Lots of variety to read about and free  patte...

I started knitting some socks this week.  I found some lovely Lorna's Laces yarn at our local yarn shop in a burgundy that reminded me of fall leaves.  This pattern is from the Interweave book "Favorite Socks" and this is Evelyn Clark's pattern.  Really fun pattern and easy repeat to memorize.  So far so good for me on this project!    I made my scottie dog design into a pillow this week.  I had him in a frame for a while but I think he looks better in a cozy pillow.  He's off to live with someone else now and I'm a little bit sad.  I may have to embroider him again...     I've really been knitting a lot lately, probably because I'm anxious for the cooler fall temperatures and no more triple digits.  This is a really fun and easy pattern by Jared Flood off the Ravelry site.  Mine turned out a touch big so I am going to use a size smaller needle for the next one I knit, but I tend to ...