Country Garden Stitchery

  I designed this desert crystals fabric for a geology themed contest on Spoonflower a while back.  I have a jar of crystals I collected when my husband and I were first dating (years ago :) and I was inspired to draw some of them for this contest.  We'd go out exploring in the desert and in certain areas there were so many pretty little crystals!  I kept a little collection for myself in a jar to remember.   A talented sewist emailed me photos of a blouse she made with the Desert Crystals silk crepe de chine fabric.   I thought she did a lovely job and wanted to share it.   You can get a closer look at the fabric here Desert Crystals Fabric  

  I've been enjoying embroidering on felt lately and decided to make some little brooch pins for autumn and Christmas.  I made a couple in pink in honor of October breast cancer awareness month.   I received some new felt in the mail today and the seller did such a nice job packing it I wanted to take a photo before I opened it.      I got some cool colors for winter designs.   And some warmer shades for autumn and Halloween.      The weather was so nice yesterday so I took my sock knitting project outside and worked on it for a while.  Sat with my cat (sounds like Dr. Seuss), knitted and enjoyed fresh air.  I'm almost finished with the second sock!  I've been working on this project for a while now and  I'm looking forward to wearing them.  I guess the colder weather has inspired me.  Hope you have a great week.   

  I've been working on Autumn and Christmas designs and finished a merry snowman tea towel today.      He's easy to embroider.  I used Gentle Art hand dyed floss in "Buckeye Scarlet" red.  The skein had great color variations.      I'm looking forward to making something out of the snowman fabric I used for the background too.  Maybe another BOM project with Christmas fabrics.  That sounds inspiring.

  I finished my June Rose cross stitch design yesterday.  I'm making them all into needlecases because I like useful little things like that.  All the designs measure 4" x 6" so are easily framed in standard size frames.  It will be in your local needlework shop soon!   I went to the local annual outdoor antique market last weekend and found these two tea towels for my collection.  They have the prettiest little hand embroidered flowers on really soft fabric.  I'm not sure what the fabric is, maybe a linen cotton blend.  Nice colors too!    My embroidery book is now on Amazon! You can Click here to visit and view a few of the pages inside on Amazon's site.  Hope you have a good day.     

  I'm taking a little break from needlework and brainstorming some different designs as well as greeting cards and painted this yesterday.  My grandmother-in-law gave me a little teapot like this years ago that has a cottage style to it so I was inspired to paint it.  Hope you had a relaxing Labor Day.