Country Garden Stitchery

I've been wanting to embroider a hot air balloon for some time now and was finally inspired by the dark gloomy days (and news) to do something bright and colorful.  I gathered a handful of the most colorful fabric scraps from my scrap drawer and surrounded the embroidery with them to make a little patchwork pillow.  It was a fun project and brightened my day. I also stocked up on some towels over the summer on my various visits to shops here and there.  Now I'm beginning to embroider them with some tea inspired designs.  I love these Dunroven House towels.  I found them at a quilt shop and bought three of them and now thinking I need more.  They are really nice, hightly recommend them!     Some more fabric scrap ideas for you.  Save those small pieces!  I save all mine that are at least 2" square.  You can do something with them :)  I made some little pincushion scissor fobs and embroidered little designs...

I designed a set of birthday greeting cards with birth month flowers and was inspired to make needlecase patterns from the same idea.  I thought they'd make nice birthday gifts or to make one for your own birthday month.  The idea came late this year so I'm just getting this one out for January.  I hope to be more on schedule for the rest of the months throughout 2013.     The inside view.  I've been putting just one piece of fabric for pockets but thought I'd try two with this needlecase so there are a total of four pockets.  I like this better.  This pattern comes with finishing instructions.  Hopefully it will be in your local needlework shop soon and I'll have it in my shops before too long.  Last weekend we had our fifth annual Christmas Fine Art and Craft fair here in Fallon and it was really fun with lots of really neat items.  We hold it in our old post office that has been renovated and is the pe...

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving holiday weekend (US readers :)  Last week I made some more needlebooks from my Spoonflower fabrics.  I also made some beaded scissor fobs with different color themes and charms at the end.  Now I need to think about making some more fabrics to  have some new samples to work with in 2013.    I also made some pinnies for our local Christmas craft fair in a couple weeks.  These have some of my fabric samples in them too.  They are fun to make and cheerful little gifts.  I've also designed a cross stitch pattern for January birthdays that I will be starting soon and hope to have a preview for you next week. 

I've put together some redwork embroidery tea towel kits in my Etsy Shop and have three Christmas redwork kits available now.  They come with the towel, hand dyed floss from The Gentle Art and the pattern.  Quick and fun projects.     I love these linen guest towels.  They are easy to embroider and look nice on display too.  I used one strand of floss to embroider the snowman design since it is an intricate design and was worried it would look to crowded and undefined with two.   I have a collection of tea towels I made this year so will plan on making kits for all of them.  Fun little projects that make nice gifts too.  I'm still working on some things for our local craft show next month.  These are little notebook covers with pockets that hold a small tablet and pen.  A little smaller than the composition notebook cover.  Something different.  Spoonflower is having free shipping today throug...

I've put together some embroidery kits for beginning stitchers or anyone who would like to try a sampling of different fabrics and flosses to embroider with.  They have several pieces of different fabrics, several types of flosses and a collection of little embroidery patterns to try.  All of it is put in a patchwork tote so they make nice gifts!   I've been making some needlebooks for the holidays using my Spoonflower fabrics.  They have pockets inside and felt pages.  Cheerful little gifts!  For our local craft show in December I've been making a little of this and a little of that.  I love to make covered journals using composition books.  Fun to "fussy-cut" fabrics and frame them in with other fabrics.  This one was made with the fun fruit ladies fabric.  So cute. 

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...