Fun Finishing!

In the spring of 2012 I visited North Carolina where we had a great time stitching Flower Diamonds. We had lots of fun with this project, with several stitchers making changes of threads, beads, ribbons, and/or stitches. So last week when I received this photo of a finished project I was just thrilled!!  My original piece is finished as a neck roll.....but what a great idea is this?!......a tote bag for stitching projects.  And the flowers are wonderful!

Sally, thank you for sharing your wonderful project.

FYI  This design has been retired, but is still available as a marked canvas and instruction book kit....no thread/ribbon/bead kit available.

New Geometric Series

This past month I have begun stitching on a series of three small, 5" X 5", geometric designs.  Many stitchers have requested some small designs and I agree, it is nice to have something small at the ready as a take-along project.  These will be stitched primarily with the new Treenway Silks Natural-Dyes.  I am using Harmony (6-strand silk floss) and Zen Shin (Perle #8 silk)....plus one metallic and one multi-color thread.  Here is the sample card: 

The colors I'm using for this first design are Lemongrass, Fern, Thistle, Tropical Bloom, Tuscan Gold, and probably Red Saffron.  

#1 is inspired by Native American patterns.  Each one will be stitched on 18-count eggshell canvas, but each will be in a different geometric style.....#2 could be based on a Log Cabin pattern and #3 could be waves....but definitely each will have a different "feel.

As you can see above, I am in the process of changing the "arrows" from Red Saffron to Thistle, but some of the Red Saffron still remains....I think the Thistle is much better. Can you see the two smaller squares in the lower right quadrant?  They will be surrounded by the same Milanese variation stitche in the upper left quadrant.  

It's fun to stitch a small piece!  

Check back around Thanksgiving to see the finished project.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Terry

A trio of Poppies

For the last few weeks I have been stitching on three little 3" square Iceland Poppies entitled Poppy Trio.  This trio will be offered at the 2014 ANG Seminar.  Of course they took me longer than I had planned....but each flower needed to be handled a little differently.  The designs all begin with a transfer design created from an original water sketch which is then ironed onto the canvas.     The background stitching is all very open and chosen to show off the "sketched" flowers.   I also tried different border ideas and ways of stitching the flower centers so students will have stitching options.  

I was happy to finally get them to the framer today and we decided to use the same frame and matting for each, but they would also look nice all framed together.  

My next few projects will be a series of three small geometric designs, approximately 5 inches square.  They will be primarilty stitched with some new Treenway silk threads.  The first design's planned completion date is November 1st, so look for an update in mid September.  

Terry