It's Otter Time!

I realized it's about time to release my otter collage that I designed and taught at EGA's Greater Pacific Region seminar in Asilomar, California.

If you're an otter lover, this project is for you! It's called PACIFIC COAST COLLAGE and features a smiling otter


a bright Monarch butterfly


and some dimensional shells (worked in bullion knots.)



Please visit my website for more details about this design.

My Glass Jewels

Once in a while, I get the urge to pull out my fused glass materials and make a batch of fused glass "jewels" in my tiny jewelry kiln. They're very fun to make, and I like looking at the surprise "jewels" that are created. I've always thought they'd be great accents on needlepoint projects; and indeed, that was the reason I bought the small kiln many years ago.

I've only used the jewels on a few projects. It's harder than I thought to a) mass-produce lots of the same jewels, and b) create just the right jewels for certain projects. One of the best uses of fused glass jewels happened in my PURPLE PANELS design. Here's the whole design, which works vertically:


or horizontally:


I wanted to create something elegant and abstract, that could also incorporate a fused glass jewel in the design. And all of the blocks of patterns were really fun to stitch up.

This design also uses one of my favorite design tricks: I pick a variegated thread color I like, and then stitch it with several different colors to see how the variegated colors change when they're mixed with different solid colors. The Waterlilies' color I used here was 06 - "Amethyst" because it has such a yummy mix of blues, purples and greens. Here you can see it mixed with DMC 340, periwinkle blue.

The orchid colors you see above (DMC 552 & 553) are used again in the lower boxes. And they pick up the amethyst colors in the attached fused glass jewel as well.









All in all,







this is another one of my favorite pieces, and I never tire of looking at the different elements that make up this sophisticated abstract design.

Wait! There's More...

Quite a while ago, in a previous post, I showed you the borderwork on a small California Poppy piece that I use as a teaching/class project. Now, I want to show you how I've slightly modified that border for a companion piece. Same pattern, different flower, -- and a different colorway.

This time I stitched up some lilacs:


Unlike the poppies, where both borders were stitched with the same dark green, I stitched the inner border with the lighter green and the outer border with the darker green. It creates a bit more drama and dimension - just by changing the colors slightly. Keep that in mind.... next time you want to add a border (or repeat one) think about altering the color just a bit, to create extra richness.

While we're on the subject... I also stitched this pattern in a wine country version, called GRAPE HARVEST, using an autumnal color palette:


In this teaching design, I took the lilac flowers of the upper design, turned them upside down and altered them slightly to turn them into grape clusters.

Same design composition, just different botanicals and very different color palettes. And what a different "feel" each design has!

(And oh yes, in case you were wondering, I've already started yet ANOTHER variation of this design, using soft pastel colors for a sweet summertime flower..... but you'll just have to be patient and wait and see what I come up with!!)

Happy First Day of Spring!

Since it's the first day of Spring today, I thought I'd share a bunch of flowers with you. It seems like all the white flowers are starting to bloom in my garden right now, so those are the ones I'll bring to you:














HAPPY SPRING!

My Green & Purple Finish

Well, I've finished my green & purple "fun" project: the Happy Birthday sampler from Blackbird Designs.


I've made a few changes to the pattern (slightly changed the verse, shorted the overall length, moved the little houses at the bottom) as well as employed a few easy needlepoint stitches to complete the piece quickly, rather than working the whole design in cross stitches.

Here's a close-up so you can see what I've done:


Instead of cross-stitching the zig-zag border around the verse, I just used diagonal long stitches, then filled them in with little straight stitches in the variegated floss - so the border had a bit more color (well really, I just wanted an excuse to show off more of the yummy variegated colors of Waterlilies' "Hyacinth".).

You can also see what I did to my FAVORITE part - the thistle flowers. I just made them with diagonal long stitches, to give them a bit more puffy dimension and color.

And the rest of the piece was stitched with fast and easy half cross stitches - or a variation of the tent/continential stitch.

Celtic Cross #2

In my second Celtic attempt, I wanted to try using blackwork to create a special Celtic design.

This is my CELTIC CROSS #2:


I actually designed the piece around an "emerald" button I found in a fabric store. At the time, there were many Celtic-type buttons to choose from, and I liked this antique-looking green button.

I settled on this simple, but most effective composition of an actual Celtic cross layout. And I was very careful to choose blackwork patterns that looked "Celtic" to me. Here are the ones I used in this design:


As you can see in this photo, the actual patterns I stitched in the arms and center areas all have some variation of the larger celtic cross shape within their repeating patterns. This "echoing" of shape and motif re-enforces the overall Celtic theme and also works to tie all the different areas together. In the corners, I've added some large Waffle stitches in a thicker gold cording, as another "echo" of Celtic knotwork. Overall, I was pleased to create a modern blackwork piece that also had the feel of something quite ancient.

I used one ply of dark green DMC floss along with green and gold blending filament, throughout the whole piece, which is stitched on 25 or 28 ct. Lugana (I forget which). Unfortunately, photos never show the dazzling sparkle of metallics in a stitched piece. But trust me, this piece REALLY has lots of green and gold sparkle! It's a favorite blackwork piece of mine, and one I enjoy looking at every day.

Celtic Cross #1

I thought this week would be the perfect time to show you the other two Celtic designs I've done. Here's the first one, a very early design called CELTIC CROSS #1.


This was done MANY years ago, and was stitched all in cross stitches (with a few satin-stitched borders) on a natural-colored linen. I particularly wanted to try and replicate the shadows of the interlocking strands, so making the overall design look three-dimensional was a challenge. Here's what it looks like up-close:


Like so many other stitchers, I too am fascinated with the intricacy of celtic design. This was my first attempt at interpreting that ancient and most beautiful art.