A Springy Cyber Class!

Deep in the dreary wintry days of rain and snow, it's nice to dream of spring.  With that in mind, I've chosen LILAC TIME as my next cyber class, to begin in March 2016.

It's a sweet 8" x 8" counted canvaswork design, done on santa fe green 18 ct. canvas.
The palette is based on yummy Watercolours 064 - "Pale Lilac" and has a nice range of different types of threads, with #5 pearl cottons, floss, a bit of floche, and metallic ribbons making up the rest of the thread palette.

The stitches are easy and fun, using a handful of soft pastel colors....

And you get to dream about sweetly scented lilacs while you stitch -- how nice is that?!?

So if you're in the mood to start thinking about springtime flowers, please snowshoe on over to my website for ordering information on LILAC TIME!

My Next Cyber Class

Had enough of winter?

Ready for a little whiff of spring?

Why not join me in creating a small floral tapestry called "LILAC TIME" that celebrates one of the most-beloved flowers of spring:


LILAC TIME is 7.5" x 7.5" on 18 ct. mono canvas in Santa Fe sage green. The thread palette combines Watercolours 064 - "Pale Lilac" with a handful of DMC #5 pearl cottons, floss, floche, and metallic Ribbon Flosses.

Framed within a sparking border, is a pastel lattice with lots of lilacs of all sizes - small, medium and large! You know I love flowers, and one of my personal challenges as a designer is to create my favorite flowers using stitches and threads that I love. I think LILAC TIME captures those romantic lavender flowers extremely well (and I fancy I can smell those fragrant lilacs every time I look at it - even in the middle of winter!)

(I might also mention that I have designed several floral pieces using this same size, format, and layout - all with the double borders, the watercolory lattice, and the floral tapestry with several sizes of the same flower. I haven't released them to the public at large, and I intend to offer all of them as Cyber Classes throughout the rest of the year. Other designs in this floral series include Summer Daisies, Golden California Poppies, and Grape Harvest.)

The registration period for LILAC TIME starts now and runs through March 20th. I expect the cyber class to begin April 20, 2011 and it should run about four weeks.

LILAC TIME is not a particularly difficult project, and the stitches are easy to do, but the precise arrangement of stitch sequences within a small space can be a bit confusing to a true beginner, so I have to rate this project as an advanced beginner-to-slightly-intermediate piece. It is certainly helpful to have some experience stitching on canvas (we will be working on 18 ct. mono canvas) and it is, of course, essential to have a familiarity with counting and stitching from a counted canvaswork graph.

If you love lilacs and are interested in joining this cyber class, please visit my website (listed on the right side in BOLDED LETTERS) and click on the LJP CYBER CLASSES menu at the top of the website.

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!!)