Country Garden Stitchery

  I've been going through my hand embroidery designs lately.  They've been accumulating over the years and I'm running out of room to store them.  I'm putting them on sale at great prices in my Artfire shop.  Green Tea and Jasmine is a nice size for a frame or can easily be made into a pillow or wall hanging.   Here's the link for Green Tea      French Kitty is a fun whimsical cat in front of the Eiffel Tower in a meadow of red poppy flowers.  He's a good cat.  I'm not sure why, but I've always thought of him as a male cat.  Here's the link to see French Kitty   I've made a kit for the February Violets design.  It comes with the flour sack towel, hand dyed flosses and fabric for the border.  A fun and quick project.     

  Some scottie dogs for Valentine's Day!  A new mug rug pattern set with Scotties embroidered in pink and turquoise.  These would look great in redwork too if you're not all that into pink.     I've started a new series of patterns featuring the birth month flowers.  I wanted to use violets this time for February, instead of irises.   And January carnations.  I also have a few kits available for these patterns.  The kits include the flour sack towel, flosses and the fabric seen in the photo.  Hope you have a good weekend.  It's madly blowing dust around here with no rain, unfortunately.  Maybe next week. 

  Our local Christmas craft fair was held last weekend and I made pillows of several of my needlework designs to sell.   I only have so much room to store my handmade items so each year I sell a few to make room for the new.      Our show was a success and I enjoyed myself selling things and buying creations made by others.   I think I may miss this little angel the most out of all of these.  The pillow turned out nicely and I liked the red and brown colors together.   The person who bought the pillow seemed happy to have it and that makes me happy.      I wish everyone Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and all the best in the new year!

  I've been busy making Christmas needlebooks.  They make great gifts for your crafty friends.  Put in some needles, pins, buttons and such.  Great way to say, "I'm thinking of you".     I'm taking a Craftsy class called "Sew Sturdy Travel Organizers" and this is the first project.      I learned a lot in the class.  The instructor is wonderful and explains things very well.  Lots and lots of zippers in this project.  There are two pages of vinyl pockets and each pocket has a zipper.  So I learned to work with mesh, vinyl and zipper yardage.      It was a fun class.  I'm taking a break before starting the next bag in the class.  Probably after the holidays.  I've already filled my bag with sewing accessories and use it frequently. 

  My little frosty cross stitch ornament is in the 2014 Just Cross Stitch Christmas ornament issue along with a lot of really cute ornaments and projects.        Lots of projects to work on for the holiday season!    I was also very excited to learn my Redwork Borders hand embroidery pattern was selected for embroidery pattern of the year for 2014 on the Craftsy Blog .    Here are a couple more new fabrics from my Spoonflower collection.  A  Cornflower Blue blue watercolor check that is a nice accent fabric.    And a fun lavender polka dot with watercolor spatter in darker purple colors. Another nice accent fabric or home décor fabric.  You can find the Lavender Dots fabric here.

  Some fun bug fabric this week from my Spoonflower collection called "Crickets" ~ great for Halloween!        September Morning Glory from my birth month flower series is now available in my Artfire shop.  All of the designs are the same size so they can be easily finished with framing or sewing.      And October Marigold with soft golden autumn shades with some pink, orange and purple.   My daughter is off to college now and I found this redwork embroidery pillow that she made when she was in kindergarten.  Think I'll keep this one around.  Have a great Halloween weekend!   

  A set of redwork holly coasters on hand dyed linen fabric in the color of a warm coffee drink accented with a sage green ribbon.  I used hand dyed red flosses for the nice color variations.  You can find them here in my Etsy Shop        Since it's getting closer to the end of the year, I've wanted to finish up some projects I started earlier.  I took the  Craftsy class Sewing with Knits and loved it.  I made a t-shirt, a hoodie and these yoga shorts.  I love their classes and they are lifetime classes so you can take a break and come back later to make more items.         Here's another bundle of my Spoonflower fabric samples with coordinating colors.  Their printing technology is really nice.  The colors, patterns and watercolor variations print out wonderfully.      This fabric is called "Green Veggies" and has pen and ink...