Country Garden Stitchery

  We took a trip to Grass Valley, CA and Nevada City, CA to see what was new.  They have a few antique shops to browse. My favorite type of antique shop is the kind that has many dealers and lots of variety.  It's fun to browse around to see what you can find.  One booth had a box with some vintage buttons and a nice selection of needle books.  Some that were given away from grocery stores and insurance companies.  I found one from Farmer's Insurance and I almost got it, but liked this one better.  I liked the illustration on the front and it is nice and clean.        All the needles inside were complete too.  Nice, shiny and bright tin foil keeping the needles straight and in line.  Fun!     Along side the box of buttons and needle books was a selection of hand embroidery patterns so I thought I should have a couple of those too.  I love how the styles have c...

I had this tomatoes hand embroidery design in a frame and decided to change it a bit and make it into a pillow.  I bought the floral postcard fabric at Joann's in January and kept it for a while not knowing what I wanted it for.  It matched the flosses I used in the embroidery really well so that worked out great.    I bought a bunch of different colors of felt and had a great time Friday making some different needlebooks.  Working with felt is great since it doesn't fray or ravel.  It is really nice to embroider on too.     I thought some animal shapes would be fun and who doesn't love elephants and pigs?  I especially love pigs.  I was a farm girl for a lot of my childhood and loved the pigs we had.  One would come and drink out of the hose as we filled their water trough.  And elephants with their trunks up are supposed to be a lucky symbol ~ hopefully! I found these hand dyed wool ...

Time for a giveaway!  The giveaway includes this needlebook, beaded scissor fob, skein of Cherry Wine Gentle Art Sampler floss and an embroidery pattern of the winner's choice!  Just leave a comment on my blog or on my facebook page stating which pattern you'd like if you win.  I'll announce the winner next Thursday!

I'm really excited to be able to post on here again.  For a while I couldn't upload my photos so I switched to the blog on my website, but I like this site better as I have a lot more room for photos and info!  I've been making different needlecases with my Spoonflower fabric samples and have them in my Etsy shop available for sale.  They make nice gifts for crafting friends.  Also to fill with supplies and give to a beginning stitcher. I tried embroidering a few brooches earlier in the year with silk ribbons, silk floss and beads.  Nice for Mother's Day!   I've started a new cross stitch pattern series for birth month flowers and made them into needlecases.  They are about 4" x 6" so would be easy to frame if you don't like to sew :)  I found a new pattern store online if you do like to sew garments, quilts or needlework called PatternSpot