Country Garden Stitchery

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