WATER-LILY

Finished stitching the water-lily. Found this in a card-making magazine in my heap of mags. which I am slowly working my way through. I liked the colours and simplicity of this plus the added corners and the bead dragonfly. It will be mounted in a card mount for a greetings card.

An also onto my third cross-stitch Christmas card and have stitched some fancy seams on my crazy patchwork square.

Got my copy of `Stitch` magazine this morning. On the cover is a gorgeous - and I mean GORGEOUS - phone pouch worked in crazy patchwork and embellished. I am drooling! If only I could produce something as wonderful as this!

MY FIRST CRAZY PATCHWORK SQUARE

After seeing all those wonderfully, gorgeous crazy patchwork squares thought I would take the plunge and try one. Found some small pieces of fabric in my stash and decided to use a small sample of cross-stitch as my first 5-sided piece. The colours of the other pieces are taken to blend in nicely with this piece. I don't know about the blue though. Still, this is an experimental square so I will see how it shapes up.

Now, I need to do some stitching on the seams - that should be fun. Got alot of my books down from the shelves and given them a dusting!!!!!!!!!

Stitched this small piece last evening. Hardanger Floral. A freebie from Yahoo Group TangleCrafts. Used 28 count Jobelan and Anchor Perle 8 and Caron Watercolour threads. Will mount this in a card mount.

MORE STITCHING

This is an ornament I stitched from a freebie design. You can see it here - http://www.debbiedraperdesigns.com/

I found the piece of light green 28 fabric in my box and used Caron Wildflowers Pale Lilac for the stitching. The edging is from my card-making stash.

This is a pincushion I stitched with a design from a magazine - can't recall which one. The piece has been waiting for some suitable edging which I found yesterday in my card-making stash. The colours were just right.

Summer Creativity Challenge 4

Well! Have now finished the four flowers for the Yahoo Hand-Embroidery group's Summer Creativity Challenge. The fourth flower is the Marigold.

How I enjoyed stitching these designs - it was sheer pleasure. I don't know what I shall use the four pieces for and, for the moment, I shall enjoy looking at them. I am so glad that I found this group and I, now, await the Autumn challenge. Not that I want the summer days to end quickly - it is the anticipation of more challenging stitching to work on.

Summer Creativity Challenge 3

Finished stitching the Iris last evening. Worked this flower on a piece of pale green lawn which I found in my stash. Used cotton stranded thread throughout.

I have been out in the garden with my camera!

I thought I would take advantage of the fine weather and go out into the garden and take pictures of some of the flowers. I hope to use some of them later in creative work - either painting or for embroidery - or, you never know, maybe both!!

This is Emma's rose; planted in memory of one of our lovely Jack Russell bitches who died aged 17 years

The Red Rose of Lancaster

Water-lily in one of the small ponds

I do love hollyhocks; they add a swathe of colour to a shady spot

Sweet Cecily seed heads

Summer Creativity Challenge 2

Finished stitching my second flower last evening. I love pansies and have a window-box of pansies right outside my kitchen window.
Why have I chosen this colourway? Because purple and green are my favourite colours and I always think that the purple pansies have petals which look like they are made of velvet.
Now, that's an idea! An appliqued pansy using velvet! Must remember that!

We have very high winds today and the roses are getting blown about. Hope they don't get damaged too much as they looking so well this year.