Friday Flowers: A Yellow Bouquet

Are you all in a Spring mood yet? I am.

Flowers always perk me up and put a smile on my face. And this time of year, it's not even necessary to go to the store and buy flowers. Just go for a walk in your neighborhood and see what's in bloom.

I thought it was time to gather a yellow bouquet for you today:










Have a happy and sunny Friday!

What ARE Those Flowers?

I know some of you are going to ask about the stitched flowers on my masthead this month.

Those are anemones - a spring bulb you may be seeing in your area about now. They come in the most vibrant colors of pink, white, and periwinkley purple (a perfect match for DMC 333!) with a jet-black center button. I love them (well, I love most all flowers, really.)


The purple ones are my most favorite...although the red and white ones are darn cute, too. Here's another up-close view:


When I started stitching flowers, I was trying to replicate the flowers as realistically as possible, just using canvaswork stitches. If you look closely, you'll see that all the petals are stitched with the same pattern, but the stitch direction changes on each petal. That creates a light change as well, so the petals have the silky satin look of real flower petals and give the illusion of being stitched in different colors. Then I outlined them with a backstich in 1 ply DMC floss 310 to give them crisp, sharp edges.

I did several of my favorite flowers in this style (Dianthus, Amaryllis, Pansies, California Poppies, to name a few). The above pattern can be found in my Secret Garden Collection and is called ANEMONES. It is worked on 25 ct Congress Cloth with DMC floss.

Sweeeeeeet Vi-o-lets!

Sorry it's been so long since I've sat down and blogged. I guess I haven't been in much of a chatty mood. Instead, I've been in a focused design-every-idea-that-comes-into-my-head mood and I decided to run with it and see where it takes me. So, needless to say, I've been busy stitching up a storm. Really. (You should see the stack of started canvases on scroll bars I've got piled up in the corner of my office.)

So I reveal a finished piece to you today, as an offering that celebrates the beginning of spring. TA DA! It's called BARGELLO AND VIOLETS:


I wanted to try a four-way bargello piece using - you guessed it, surprise, surprise - variegated thread. This purple version uses Watercolours 259, "Garden Path" (a totally yummy color combo, I must admit) with green and purple #5 pearl cottons and a gold and purple metallic ribbon (I like Ribbon Floss, but it can be hard to find so I also list an alternate Kreinik 1/8th Ribbon color). [ASIDE: I also provide a list of threads to use if you want to stitch a pink or blue version.]

Here are the bargello colors up-close, as well as a bit of the outer border and easy background stitch, done with an antiquey looking #12 pearl cotton 437:


The bargello rows go really fast, so I had them all stitched quickly. And the soft metallic shimmer of the Ribbon Floss threads really make this piece sparkle - I wish you could see the actual model! Then I set the project down and didn't touch it for a year. Ahem. Time flies, etc., etc....

When I pulled it out again last month I realized I just had to figure out how to put the violets in the center. My first idea was to stitch a little tussie mussie of violets in the center or perhaps a whole violet plant. But when I graphed out a violet flower, I realized it would be fairly easy to make the violets geometrical/symetrical to echo the four-way bargello....I then added a few violets in the corner and "VOILA! C'est fini!"

Here's a close-up of the violet center:


You can see that I added a few gold beads in the centers of the flowers, just to add some dimension to the piece.

Originally, I intended to make this into a pillow and not enclose it with a border. But when I finished stitching the bargello and violets part it looked sort of plain just floating there on the canvas. So of course, I started adding one border, then another, and another.....until it was totally encircled to my satisfaction. Now it's a frame-able piece.

So if you're a sweet violet fan (like me) and you like all things purple and green (just like me) and you're in the mood to stitch a springtime project (oh YEAH!) - this might just be the project for you! Please visit my website to see the ordering information for my new BARGELLO AND VIOLETS.

And.....Have a Happy Easter weekend!

Friday Flowers: Coastal Edition

Last week, I went to stitch with a few of my friends in a house at Bodega Bay. Besides the fun of being with friends and stitching non-stop, one of my favorite things to do is taking Katie Lou for walks in a new environment. Here are some of the things we enjoyed seeing. First of all, Bodega Bay:


then lots of interesting houses looking out at the Pacific Ocean:

plenty of trimmed bushes in spring colors (they look a little bit like Easter eggs, don't they?):



and of course, pretty flowers:




It was a very cool getaway, as you might guess....

Anyway, Happy Friday and I hope you get some stitching done this weekend!

My Kimono with Fans

I keep meaning to show you the way I framed this particular square piece within a standard rectangular frame, because it might give you some ideas for framing some of your own pieces that are unusual or non-standard sizes.

Normally, for my pattern covers I scan each finished piece onto my scanner for the best possible close-up image of the stitched model. I don't provide a photo of the framed piece, since THAT part of the process I leave for each stitcher to determine themselves.

But the way I framed this piece provides a rather simple way to create an elegant look and I thought you'd be interested in seeing the overall piece.... After I finished stitching this piece, and laced up the back around a piece of mat board, I went looking thru my pile of frames. As I recall, I had to get it framed quickly to send it off to a show, and I didn't have time to shop around for the "perfect" frame.

All I had on hand was a lovely rectangular frame with a gold finish that matched the golds in the piece. [ASIDE: I took this photo on a dark grey day, but the frame and kimono actually are a deep gold color, like the kimono lapels.] To eliminate the extra space on the top and bottom, I decided to use pieces of fancy wallpaper (from an old discarded wallpaper book) - that I tore up "artistically" and placed on the background purple mat. (You could also get this same look by using one of the many scrapbooking papers available...or you could even use pieces of fabric..)

But it still needed something..... so I added yet another piece of darker purple mat board, which provided extra dimension, plus the additional accent of color (it also echoes the dark purple lining of the kimono and draws the eye up and down, attaching the two separate pieces of wallpaper). Here's what the bottom half of the piece looks like up-close:


It had never occurred to me to collage the background of a stitchery piece, but as you can see in this model, it works well with the piece and even adds some additional interest to the finishing. (And, in case you're wondering....I glued the papers with spray adhesive, then hot glued the laced model on top of everything.)

So, I hope this gets you thinking about different ways to finish your stitched pieces, and trying other combinations besides regular matting....

P.S.: For those of you who might ask, this design is called KIMONO WITH FANS and can be found in my KIMONO COLLECTION at my website.

Friday Flowers: Camellias

It's that time of year when camillias are starting to bloom in Northern California. And it's always a pleasure to see their pinks and reds and whites unfolding in such frothy abundance. It's fun to walk around the neighborhood and look at all the different kinds of camillias showing off....

So I thought I'd share a bouquet of ruffly camillias with you - focusing on just the red ones this time. These flowers come from the bushes just in my yard (and my neighbor's too)...I love all of them, but I'm particularly mesmerized by the speckled and striped ones - as if an artist hand-painted each petal for a dazzling effect:









Have a Happy Frilly Friday!

Thanks, Jane!

I've been following Jane's Chilly Hollow adventures as she begins working on the Tony Minieri piece, "STARS FOR A NEW MILLENIUM." Watching her careful step-by-step process has inspired me to pull out my MILLENIUM piece, which I started a few years ago and haven't touched in a long while.

I'm enjoying watching Jane as she thoughtfully considers her (many) options regarding color choices for her piece. She's even created a blog poll for interested readers to give their opinions on which colors/threads she should use. And there are a LOT of different threads used in this piece, so it's smart to plan ahead, before you start stitching.

Having said that, I must confess that that's not the way I'm tackling this project. Instead, I pulled all the possible threads I might want to use - as shown in the above photo (which has created a big knarly mess, frankly...)

My foundation variegated thread is one that I dyed myself - in my favorite pink & green combination - with some lavender and apricot thrown in for a little added spice! (This combination is similar to Caron Collections' 003 - "Meadow" or 088 - "Mountain Meadow" colors, which are favorites of mine, because they have a base green color plus pink, blue, apricot, yellow, lavender accents - allowing you to pick your favorite pastel accent color.) Below is a close-up of a few of the blocks, plus the variegated thread I'm using as the foundation...


This is such a large, complex piece, that the best way to tackle it is to focus on each block at a time. And each block is a stand-alone masterpiece by itself! So that's the way I've approached this big project: working each block as a separate item, mixing and blending threads to make each block work to my color specifications.

Anyway, this past weekend I waded back into the project by working first on the easier border and sashing (to re-familiarize myself with the design) then I continued on to get one more block finished - TA DA - thanks to Jane and her own Millenium adventure. (See Jane... I DID start stitching on it again!):


Surprisingly, I'm using more lavender and apricot threads than I expected. The lavenders are becoming the "zing" accent color, and the apricots are becoming the lightest "brights" in the piece. Totally unexpected -- but I'm letting the piece talk to me, and dictate the colors I use, block by block. It should definitely be interesting to see how this turns out!

Anyway, I wanted to thank Jane for getting me re-enthused about this large counted canvaswork piece - it's definitely a heirloom project... And if other stitchers out there are also working on their MILLENIUM pieces, please feel free to share your colors and stitching experiences as well, so we can all share this wonderful stitching adventure together!