Another Cyber Class

I never promised you a rose garden...

but here's the other cyber class I promised you this month and I'm calling it my GARDEN GATE:


I just LOVE stitching gardens, and this one is an especially sweet little 6" x 8" project worked on 24 ct. green Congress Cloth. I really enjoyed working with a handful of subtly variegated flosses from ThreadworX that helped create a more realistic garden. If you look closely, you'll see that the lawn, bushes, and flowers are all done with those variegated threads.

In order to make the climbing roses a bit larger in scale than the rest of the french knot flowers, I chose to use Ribbon Floss for the french and bullion knots, and they really look like big fat roses! Also, the opalescent Ribbon Floss also give the roses a soft sparkle of dewdrops - a very magical and pleasing effect.

Here's a peek at the piece up-close:


And after I finished stitching all my pink roses, I realized the piece would also look terrific with pale yellow roses too -- so stitchers can choose which color they prefer to go along with their delphiniums: pink or yellow. And, I've also included a "WELCOME" script that can be added to the bottom of the design, since I thought this would make a lovely welcome sampler in any home.

I consider GARDEN GATE to be a more intermediate-level project. The stitcher needs to be comfortable working embellishment stitches (french knots, bullions, lazy daisy stitches) on top of stitched areas, as well as having the confidence to add lots of those stitches in random patterns.

Random stitching often creates anxiety in stitchers... but this is one project that DOESN'T need all the surface stitches to be precise and perfectly aligned - au contraire, mon amie! In this case, the sloppier and more irregular the better. I know it can be scary to start (there's always that fear of making terrible mistakes) but once you get started working all those knots, you start to loosen up and actually have fun with it.... (you know, it can be very freeing plopping all those bullions and french knots hither and yon, without worrying about how neat they all are!)

So, if this GARDEN GATE cyber class (which starts at the end of July) gets your garden green thumb itching to start stitching, please visit my website for more information and the class registration form.