Country Garden Stitchery

Thinking ahead about Valentine's Day chocolate came to mind and, of course, hearts. I wanted something different than red and pink. Color is one of my favorite things in the whole world. Nothing better than having all of my floss out around me organized by color in a huge wheel and I get to put them together to see if they sing or scream. I especially love the hand dyed colors because I can use less and get more in my designs. I chose just a few colors for my chocolate swirl project - purples and greens. I loved the combination. I have also been in a green mood with my knitting project. When my sister and her husband brought their sweet new baby girl to visit us in Nevada this summer we visited "Jimmy Beans Wool" in Reno and I bought some luxurious alpaca and silk yarn. I love to touch it. Seems to melt through my hands. I chose a fairly easy lace pattern - to me a lace pattern would be the only type to do this yarn justice. I just knew it would drape beautifully. It had ...

I have been working on Valentine design ideas and decided I would put one of them on my blog to see if anyone would like to try it out. If you have trouble printing it from here please visit my website as it should print from there, http://www.countrygardenstitchery.com/ I finished mine in an evening and made it into a cute patchwork tote. It is very easy. I used stem stitch on the hearts and large swirl flowers, back stitch on the small swirl flowers, lazy daisy stitches for the leaves and three wrap french knots for the smallest swirl flowers. I used one strand of Caron Collection Wildflowers in Eggplant. I stitched the design on some very white fabric with a subtle floral design on it. I love little bags and totes so I went through my fabric scrap box and found some pieces to make one. I trim down my finished design to about an inch around and begin by putting two strips of fabric on each side and then on the top and continue adding until you are happy with the size. Cut a back the...

I am working on a couple of valentine designs to add to my other February/Valentine's day designs. One in cross stitch and one in embroidery. i like being able to trade off between them. "Chocolate Swirl" is my cross stitch design and I will leave it to your imagination to picture what it will be like until I release it in early January. "Love Matters" is my embroidery design and I think I will make a pillow out of it. I love the colors and I can see it finished in a pillow. I have been reading a lot and I have been enjoying Anita Diamant's books. I have started "Good Harbor" because the summary really spoke to me at this stage in my life. Her books are so wonderfully written and help me to discover myself. I am planning on reading "The Red Tent" again. The sun is shining and it is very cold, but this afternoon it will be warm. I need a good storm. One of my favorite things is a good storm with solid gray clouds in different shades of gr...

I have been needing some new inspiration lately. I have been reading the new 2008 Best American Mystery Stories and they are pretty good. I think it is funny they call them mysteries as some of them aren't, not even a little. I do enjoy reading most of them for the writing quality. I think maybe I need something a little more happy though. I need a really funny author, know of any. I tend to seek out the serious authors, I need a change I think. I have also been seeking change in my design work too. Fairies came to mind since I like nature and that is where they live. I have been working on new ideas for embroidery, cross stitch and greeting cards with fairies. They can be very cute, and not very cute I have learned. I have become very interested in all of them and all the beautiful artwork done now on them. I bought the new 2009 Linda Ravenscroft calendar, absolutely stunning. I hadn't heard of her work until I found the calendar at a gift shop in Fernley, Nevada. I have also ...

I am finished with my new book! Yay! It is a book of sketches from many years of exploring the Nevada desert and ghost towns with my family. Watercolor paintings, pen and ink drawings and sketches along with journal entries. The places include Unionville, Nevada; Rochester, Nevada; Lovelock, Nevada; Humboldt City, Nevada and a few other places. A few animals and other nature creatures we ran into. It is a fun little gift book, something different, especially if you like history and art work. It is available in my Etsy store for the holidays.

First snow today! We woke up to fat fluffy snowflakes coming down and coating the grass. It melted quickly more into a rain, but wow what a great ski season in the Sierras if this is an indication of the weather to come. I have been busy sewing things for the holiday crafting this season. I decided to use a technique from the industry and leave my serged edges exposed on some patchwork scarves and they turned out neat. I used variegated threads in my serger that match and I really liked it. It is fun to play with all the cute fabrics out now in the quilting shops. Quilting shops are so fun to visit. We had a shop hop here in our area and it was a great success, lots of people had fun. The online needlework show was earlier this year and it was a fun time as usual, lots of new patterns to see and emails from wonderful stitchers all over the world. Now it is time for me to get my sketches and threads out to plan for a new set of cross stitch and embroidery patterns for 2009. Thinking of ...

I spent Labor Day weekend sewing and tried a quilted runner with triangles again. Everything was going along smoothly and I was thinking to myself this is great so nice and quick. Well....beware when confidence gets to high.... i had forgot to put in a triangle or two here and there in the block strips i was making. I was wondering why i had all these little triangles left when i was ready to put on the sashing... I was reading the directions and not paying close enough attention to the illustrations. I almost hated quilting again for awhile. I had to take apart all my pretty little triangle blocks and insert more. It was a kit so i had limited fabric, fortunately the pesky triangles didn't stretch and they were salvagable and the quilt looks okay. I like quilting again since it did turn out okay and I look forward to another project, however probably not with triangles. Need a break from those. I have been working on many embroidery projects too and drawing the autumn nature scene...