Some Stitched Friday Flowers!

Now that the sizzling hot days of summer are upon us, I want to share with you my cool new cyber class offering -- "DAYLILY."  I've been stitching these two canvases over the last month or so, and totally enjoying the process.  My goal was to finish them in time to have a class this summer, and now that they are ready, so am I!  

In my flower photos, I had a really great shot of a daylily that offered a nice big shape that works perfectly for some shadow stitching -- nothing difficult or complex, no blending of different colors or stopping and starting different thread types -- just a big hunk of yellow that was screaming for some stitch patterns!

So I pulled some silk threads and started stitching.... added a border.... and a few simple textural stitches.... and eventually ended up with this:

I was all set to post this yellow daylily as a cyber class a week ago, when it occurred to me that as lemony yellow as this flower was, not everybody loves yellow.  So.... maybe I could tweek the photo to get another color daylily, and sure enough, after I photoshopped it a bit, I was able to get a darker orange flower that has a rather autumnal feel to it (I especially like the purple that shows up in the background) -- maybe it could be the last daylily of the season, just before Halloween. So I quickly stitched THAT one up, too:

Now they are both done and ready to show to you.  The registration period for the DAYLILY cyber class starts now and runs through August; the class will start September 8th (the weekend after Labor Day).  I've just posted all the cyber class information on my Laura J. Perin Designs website, so you can visit there to get all the particulars....

And here's a close-up look at the yellow daylily that shows a bit of each of the stitches highlighted in the class, in case you're curious. By the way, those center stamens were fun to stitch - I just laid a whole strand of silk Spendor along the lines, then couched them down; afterwards I added the dark anther heads with fat bullions:

(P.S.: Just so you know, the first two photos seem a bit dull in color because I've backed them with a piece of dark green paper (so the stitch holes show up better) .  Here's another photo with a piece of white paper slipped underneath half the canvas.  Much brighter, huh?  It's interesting to see the subtle differences between the white and dark backing and how the thread colors change as a result... Just something to consider when framing shadow stitched canvases, or any canvas that has the background colors exposed:)

HAPPY FRIDAY!!