Time To Hop To It!

We're almost at the weekend, which is the time to celebrate the end of Winter, and the

 joyous beginning of Spring.

Time to share more flower shots, and a few more springtime pieces with you....

 

Here's a deliciously fun quilt to stitch, FLOWER SAMPLER:

Those coral colors go well with the coral version of my EASTER EGG ORNAMENTS:

 

For pure spring flowers, there's my TULIPS, stitched on Congress Cloth:

 

Oh, Yum!  Isn't Spring wonderful?!?

Bunnies or Eggs?

So, what's your favorite Easter theme -- bunnies or eggs? 

It's hard to pick just one, isn't it? 

I love everything springy, so I think you can never have too many bunnies or eggs or flowers or baskets filled with candy!!

Here's an old quilt design that has a little bit of everything in it, SPRINGTIME QUILT, from my American Quilt Collection:

And here's a favorite piece of mine, BLACKWORK BUNNY:

And in closing, here's one of my new EASTER EGG ORNAMENTS:

Happy Mid-Week (only a few more days until the weekend)!!

Countdown to Bunny Day!

Here in Northern California Spring has definitely sprung.

Blooming flowers are peeking out everywhere 

and my garden is looking very festive.

Keeping with the season, I thought I'd share some of my spring-i-est designs with you this week, to put a smile on your face and a hop in your step!

Here's a springtime favorite, DAISY O'HARE, from my Sampler Collection:

She's definitely dressed up and ready for the Easter fun to begin....

 Hope your week gets off to a colorful start...

An Egg-cellent New Design!

I've been busy working on a special Easter design, and now it's ready to share with you: EASTER EGG ORNAMENTS!  

Here are what the four egg ornaments look like:

I've designed FOUR different eggs.... with FOUR different borders.... and the pattern lists FOUR different colorways: pink, aqua, coral and lilac.  I really couldn't decide which color I liked best, so I stitched up one of each, to show them all.   And I also wanted you to see that they can be worked on any pastel color of canvas you want as well.  So let me tell you, this is one versatile pattern!!

They were very fun to stitch up, working small areas of different stitches kept things interesting and moved along very quickly.

Here's a close-up of the coral version:

.
 the aqua version:

the pink version:

 and the lilac version:

Again, there are sooooo many different ways you can stitch these eggs up.... You can work all the eggs in one colorway; or stitch all the eggs with the same border pattern.  You can do them individually, or work them in a long panel for a bellpull.  You can set them side by side, in a foursome, for a lovely pillow top.  I think I might finish one of them as a square "stand up" so I can put it on my mantle!  

So if you're getting into the mood for some springy stitching, check out these egg ornaments on my website!

Another Heads Up, Stitchers!

Even though I'm guessing you are all stitching on springtime projects now, I need to let you know:
 If any of you stitchers have purchased my BARGELLO CHRISTMAS TREE in the last few months, please print out this revised graph and stick it inside your pattern, so when you go to stitch your tree you'll have the newly revised graph symbols.  Somehow, someway, one of the green DMC #5 pearl cottons (DMC 987) got left off the graph as well as the Materials List page. (Oh, Major Pooey!!)

So here's the legend with the CORRECT SYMBOLS for you to use:

 
My abject apologies... and I'm so very, very sorry for the graphing mistake, as well as any resulting stitching confusion!!

A New Old-Fashioned Valentine!

It's been awhile since I released a ribbon sampler, so I thought it was time to unveil this new piece, called VICTORIAN BOUQUET. 

It's a 10" by 10" design, done on 18 ct. brown canvas, and features one of my favorite variegated threads, Watercolours 047, "Camouflage."  I've chosen a rich palette of dark reds and golds that evoke the feel of an old-fashioned valentine. Other threads include a handful of #5 pearl cottons, a handful of metallics, and even one Very Velvet thread for the edges of each ribbon.  (You can, of course, select another color palette; the pattern tells you what threads you need to get if you want to create a different colorway.)

The four different ribbon patterns are built up with a combination of stitches.  Here's a closeup of two of the ribbons:

 Those fat roses, by the way, are done with a rather fun "wrapped rose" stitch that is the opposite of the "wrapped spider web" stitch, if you've ever done any of those unique stitches.

And of course, in the center is the "Victorian Bouquet" that gives this piece its name:

 You can see that it's a yummy combination of  freeform stitches that are not hard, but require a bit of concentration to work them all together -- and yes, that's a big bullion rose in the center!!  If you don't want to create my bouquet in the center, I think a large monogram would look really lovely (go looking through some graphed cross stitch alphabets for examples).  Or perhaps you'd prefer to cluster some beads and a few antique buttons in your center area... or a large, lovely cameo that can be found on ebay or etsy would look very elegant in the center, don't you think? ..... or how about those little fabric roses you can get at craft stores? 

In any event, if you're in the mood to stitch some really rich overlapping ribbons, please visit my website for more information on ordering this new VICTORIAN BOUQUET design.

Heads Up, Panel Stitchers!

If any of you stitchers have recently purchased my LONG WINTER PANEL, or are currently in the midst of stitching it, I need to alert you to a major error in the Main Graph.  On page 3 of the Main Graph, the pattern at the bottom of the panel (Pattern 6) has the YELLOW and GREEN symbols REVERSED. Big Whoops!!

The rest of the Main Graph is fine, and you should continue to follow the colors/symbols shown there,
but the revised Pattern 6 should be stitched like this:

Please accept my apologies for any inconveniences/delays/frustrations this error may have caused you in stitching the LONG WINTER PANEL.  If you have any further questions, please email me and I'll send you back a revised graph of the Main Graph, pt. 3.