Country Garden Stitchery

Hopefully we'll be enjoying some cooler temperatures now that September is here. This is my new hand embroidery pattern inspired by autumn stitched in  bright fall colors on solid green fabric from Waverly.   I love their selection of solid fabrics in bright colors for hand embroidery. Autumn Birds Embroidery Pattern details here.  

My new pattern for autumn is now available!   I used Gentle Art flosses on a Dunroven House kitchen towel.  I find those towels at the quilt shops in my area.  They may be at Michaels too and other craft shops.   I transfer my patterns using a lightbox and a #2 Micron pen or a fine Sharpie pen.  On thicker fabric like these towels that are off white the Sharpie pen works well. 

I've put out some of my autumn decorations including these placemats I made from some of my Spoonflower fabrics.  I've edited some of the fabrics, but most are the same as you see in the placemats.  Here is the link to my Autumn Fabric Collection on Spoonflower. I bought an autumn bouquet at the store the other day and have been working on a series of drawings of the flowers and want to make new designs with it soon.  Hope you're enjoying lovely autumn days.  

Taking my moleskine out and about to record the changing leaves and such. Exploring ideas and nature helps to get things flowing. Contemplation at the end of the day with a walk is always good. Love the colors of hot air balloons and the feeling of freedom watching them float through the sky.

Thinking of how kids like to measure how much they've grown. A tall sunflower would be great to measure up against, especially if there is a sunflower house close by. I've always wanted to grow a sunflower house. Sounds like a great place to escape to.

I wanted to draw something to correlate with the season and I thought about a lady trying to juggle all of her equipment back so she doesn't have to make another trip, ever feel that way? I felt like using red too, such a strong color and not in my usual palette, so apples came to mind. Have a good weekend. Nice and cool here in Nevada.

i have a tiny little area of flowers around a tree in my front yard right now. this is all i've planted since we moved in since it is so close to freezing day around here. i have a blend of yellow and pink snapdragons, some deep purplish-fuschia petunias, and an occasional bright pink petunia peeking up. i try to baby them, keep them trimmed so they will bloom as long as possible and i can have color to draw. buying flowers from the store is second best, there is nothing quite like drawing outdoors for me. total bliss. i trimmed on friday evening and there were a couple flowers still in bloom but most were done and i decided to record them in my book. i thought the textures and shapes were interesting.

The topic momentum challenged me. I thought of the time of year and nature. I have lived in the desert most of my life and spend a lot of time outside exploring. The wind blows regularly and we see many tumbleweeds rolling their way across the desert. They are very light and prickly and tend to float in the wind. Sometimes when there is a strong windstorm at night they will all be piled up next to a fence all stuck together, piled high like a pyramid.

I decided to try Illustration Friday, have been wanting to for some time now. Finally got brave enough to do it. We have sunflowers blooming all over our town right now. They are in gardens, along the roads, near canal banks and they were on the front page of the newspaper yesterday along with some bees and dragonflies so I was inspired to make my own interpretation to that.