Country Garden Stitchery

  I'm taking a little break from needlework and brainstorming some different designs as well as greeting cards and painted this yesterday.  My grandmother-in-law gave me a little teapot like this years ago that has a cottage style to it so I was inspired to paint it.  Hope you had a relaxing Labor Day.

  I've revised my hand embroidery book and it is now available on Createspace  and Amazon! It has a fresh new cover and is a larger size at 8.5" x 11".     The patterns are actual size bordered by a cheerful watercolor floral pattern.   There are 30 hand embroidery patterns and 20 watercolor paintings throughout.   At the end of the chapters are photos of finished projects with tips and suggestions.  It has 60 colorful pages and a few smaller bonus patterns that weren't in the other book.  A nice book filled with patterns and paintings!  You can find it here Sketches from Nature  Hand Embroidery Book    

  I've been reading about "block of the month clubs" lately and wanted to try out a block to see if I'd like doing one, or twelve.  I did like it, but maybe not monthly.  I like smaller quick projects and doing a quilt has seemed to big for me so far.        I found this pattern in the online "Fat Quarterly" magazine ~ the "Hour Glass Frame Block".  This is the second hour glass pattern I've done ~ the other was a potholder.  I like the finished look of the hour glasses.  Good Sunday project.    

  Are you looking forward to autumn as much as I am?  I noticed the sun is beginning to set a little sooner in the evening and it is beginning to cool off a few degrees finally.  I just released an autumn crow embroidery design  that comes with the finishing instructions for the pillow if you like to sew and decorate with handmade things.   Next month in Reno they have the annual hot air balloon races and I found myself inspired to embroider one on a flour sack towel.     I love hot air balloons and love watching them, but am still not sure if I have the nerve to actually go up in one.  I'm not a fan of heights.  Maybe as I age and mellow I will get better with that. . . hopefully :) 

  We took a trip to the Oregon coast last week and I found a few treasures for my collections of fabric, floss and vintage dish towels.  The top left photo is an oh-so-soft pink linen tea towel with a cross stitch floral pattern and a really nice light grey crossed pattern at the bottom.  Being at the coast there were lighthouse items all around made by really talented artists so I bought a few of those too.  I found greeting cards and a blue plaid dish towel ~ I really liked the all blue and white theme in the towel.  I found some new-to-me rayon/viscose hand dyed floss for my collection.  I'm looking forward to trying it out.  It's very slick and shiny.           Out of all the towels I found, this is my favorite.  The towel is really heavy fabric and has three thin red strips on each side.  I loved the little bird in between the glasses and the rows of f...

  I'm in the middle of needlework projects and don't have much to show at the moment so I thought I'd post about one of my favorite colors, robins egg blue.  I design with it a lot and have lots of things on my wish list in this color.  So I'm going to share some of those with you too, hope you enjoy!    This Love Pillow   is so pretty.  I really like how the artist arranged the letters with the dots border and put the hearts and vines winding here and there.      This is a happy Love Stamp with a fun daisy for the O.  Wouldn't you love to receive a letter with this stamp?  I would and I would probably save it and put it in my journal to keep it always.      This chevron wristlet zip pouch is completely cute.  I really like the faded look of the pattern and the script font for the name along the side.  I would use this a lot. I thought this was a neat pattern on this iPhone ...

  I released my newest pattern this week, May Lily, to Norden Crafts and Yarn Tree to be distributed!  I'm a little behind schedule on months because I had some other projects come about so I'm going to strive to get six months done this year and six next year.  I'm needing to design something for Halloween ~ my favorite holiday to design for!       We visited a few antique shops last weekend and visited one of my favorites in Gardnerville, NV.  I found the bright pink tea towel on the left.  I decided to get my little collection out and photograph all of them. I really like the shadow work and using bits of fabric for applique.  I'd like to try that in some of my designs.  Such delicate work and the linen fabrics are so soft.          While I was at my favorite antique shop I found this cross stitch pattern by Marilyn Leavitt-Imblum's "Told- in-a-Garden"...