Country Garden Stitchery

Anywhere in the world free shipping on fabric from Spoonflower on Monday June 20th only! Great time to buy some really unique art fabrics! Enjoy.

I've been working on this little flower blossom in hand dyed silk called "hopscotch days" on some warm pink hand dyed fabric. I think I will make it in to a needlecase with some of my pink fabric that is in the background. Almost finished with it. I've stitched this design before in a lighter color of pink so I wanted to try it in brighter colors. I've been busy sewing today with my new fabrics. I got a bunch back a week or so ago and have been wanting to sew them into something. I bought some insul-bright at the quilt show last weekend and used it all on these potholders. It's nice so your hands don't scorch when you take hot pans out of the oven. I'll have these in my Artfire shop soon. This is one of my favorite samples. This is my second sample I ordered from Spoonflower . I had the first one set at a very large repeat and I scaled it down and like it much better. I increased the size just a little bit to spread the design out a bit more. Love t...

Very excited today is the first day of spring and a beautiful one at that here where I am in the high desert. Very quiet morning and I am inspired to write. Got a new book yesterday - Amy Butler's "In Stitches" and I am terrifically excited to begin a project. I definitely want the bedside caddy to hold my novel - I love to read before sleep. I also bought my first flower plant for our new home - a daisy like mum. My grandmother has always grown these and they turn out so beautiful and bloom a long time. They grow into a beautiful round mass covered in flowers. I hope I can grow mine as well a she did hers. I am anxious to go and visit the nurseries to see what they have for spring planting, but not until a few more weeks have passed. Still too cold at night. During the day though we have lots of sun and people in the neighborhood are beginning to water their yards.

I have always been intrigued by superstition and supersticious people, though not suspicious myself. I wanted to paint some flowers since they are my favorite thing. Most flowers have meanings and I figured that there might be some superstitions that go along with the meanings. I found some fun ones but my favorite was "Don't pick the foxgloves or you'll offend the fairies." This was my first time painting and drawing faires and I can say I love them too and hope I've not offended them in the past with picking foxgloves!

Here are all of my new creations. Technical difficulties on my post before. I think I really like these colors.

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 had to think all day about this illustration, didn't come easy to me. Until...I was working on another project and the concept of light and dark extremes came to me. And since I love to draw and paint flowers, this is what I came up with.

I wanted to depict the study of the rose from the closed bud to its fullest "open" point with this week's topic. I think it is fun to do studies of flowers in their different stages. The rose is one of the flowers that has quite a long growing phase from the time the bud appears to the time the rose is at its fullest. Have fun with the contest for this week's entry, I did.

I immediately thought of clusters of blue flowers in many different shades of blue. Mixing the different shades in watercolor, however, presented another challenge. I found myself coming up with lots of teal shades. I'll have to work on mixing the blues. Happy weekend all.