Country Garden Stitchery

  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 with watercolor for the illustrations.  Prints nice and bright.    This fabric is called "Blue Stri

  Thinking of Christmas gifts and things that might be nice for gift exchanges at work or within crafting groups, I made some hand embroidered coasters with little primitive trees.  They were fun to make and I liked the French knots on the trees ~ they're one of my favorite stitches.  You can find them here in my Etsy shop.           I've also made a stocking pattern with several patterns that can be embroidered on the cuff.  There are several snowman patterns, cardinal and a tea set.  These are a nice size for filling with fun things to give to friends and special people in your life for the holidays.  You can find the pattern in my Artfire Shop   This is a collection of Spoonflower fabric samples that have been printed on some of their other styles of fabric including the faux suede, performance knit and the silky faille.     This sample of the dots is printed on the faux suede and it prints beautifully with lively color and captures the watercolor

  Getting ready for our local Sagebrush Sisters craft show this weekend.  We're going to have a mobile/pop up style craft show ~ kind of like the pop up restaurants that are here and there now.  I've made some journal covers with colorful fabrics and fussy cut centers.  I love the fruit ladies fabric.  I've made things out of this fabric before and always get a kick out of it.  Great colors and personality.     I added fabric borders to flour sack towels.  On some of them I used my Lemons watercolor fabric from my Spoonflower shop .  Bright and colorful gifts for the kitchen!   I liked the floral fabric with complimentary colors to the lemons fabric.  I made several towels with the lemons fabric and added different fabrics at the bottom with flowers and stripes.       This is my Pink Chrysanthemum Spoonflower fabric printed on their faux suede fabric and it is wonderfully soft, prints beautifully and would be great home décor fabric.  Hope you ha

  I've been inspired by autumn and have been creating pumpkin things lately.  This week I made two embroidered needlebooks.  The pumpkin needlebook was embroidered with hand dyed silk floss and the purple bouquet in hand dyed cotton flosses.  These are fun to give to stitching and quilting friends!  You can find them in my Etsy shop .    A new Spoonflower fabric for my farmers market collection.  This fabric has pen and ink drawings of fruits and flowers with a few bees.   A light and cheerful fabric called Fruit and Flowers.   Since the summer season has passed I've been spending time painting some scenes from Lake Tahoe.  I spent some time at Sand Harbor this summer and loved it.  It's a beautiful area of Lake Tahoe with fabulous rocks, trees and view.  Hope you have a good weekend! 

  Another fabric for my Farmer's Market collection and it's called Sweet Cherry with deep red cherries on a golden yellow watercolor check background.  Cheerful fabric!    My latest set of patterns called "Four Jacks" for Halloween.  They are whimsical jack-o-lanterns with leaves, spiders and corner cobwebs for the autumn season and Halloween.  Love Halloween!    I've been working on some landscape paintings.  Trying to do one each day to work with colors and techniques.  I really like painting the desert landscape.  Hope you have a good weekend!  

  My latest Spoonflower fabric sample called Garden Flowers and Bees drawn in black ink with watercolor.  A nice bright botanical style fabric.   I've been retaking photos of some of my designs to see what I can come up with.  This one is one of my first designs called Autumn Tidbits .  It comes with another little pattern of sunflowers.  A nice set for autumn.  You can click on the highlighted link to see the pattern in my Artfire shop .         This is the Swan House at the Atlanta History Museum.  I loved the staircase and the large flowing fountains in the front of the house.  It looked like a mansion to me, but they called it a house there.  I loved touring the rooms.  The maid had a very nice room upstairs, which I thought was interesting she got to live upstairs.  Rather than the upstairs/downstairs arrangement some of them have.      The bathroom/wardrobe/dressing room area was lovely with lots of mirrors and adornments on the walls.  Regal

  It's about time for pumpkins!  This little pumpkin cross stitch design is festive and works up quickly.  It would be cute as an ornament!  It's called Pumpkin Square and can be found in my Artfire shop      Another pumpkin cross stitch design called "Autumn Pumpkin"   It works up quickly and has a nice autumn colorway with burgundy and mauve colors to compliment the pumpkin.     Some fall harvest Spoonflower samples with fruits and flowers.   These are from my Farmer's Market collection that has all sorts of watercolor fabrics with fresh veggies and fruits in bright summer colors.  This fabric is called Apple Golden Check   The Reno Balloon Races last weekend.  We arrived at Rancho San Rafael Park a little after six and it was already very crowded with balloon watchers.   And cold!  We forgot jackets.  Right as the sun started to rise the balloons began to inflate and take off.  Lots of colors.  In all the years I've liv

  I finished my kitchen herb embroidery patterns over the Labor Day weekend and made a set of mug rugs out of them.  They're a fun quick project that look nice in the kitchen.  I like growing herbs in my garden.  They aren't fussy and when I go out to weed I brush up against the plants and they smell so nice.  You can find the pattern in my shop links along the sidebar or click here for my Artfire shop          The latest release in my shipment of Spoonflower fabrics is my Rainbow Dots Fabric that has colorful dots painted in watercolor.  Would be cute for children's items, clothing or room décor items!      I wanted to share a few more photos from Atlanta.  These are from the High Museum of Art and they were my absolute favorite of the whole museum.      I took photos of most of the marble statues.  Such glorious, fine work.  I read where sculpting wasn't popular in the US at first when statues started to become popular and the artists who we