Don't Know Where to Start

Here it is June 1st already!  A whole month without posting, I've just been feeling quiet lately.  Sort of a brain vacation.

Usually this time of year is full of working on the fair entries.  I signed up and then decided to drop out.  Usually I redo the entries thinking they aren't nice enough and end up ruining the projects.  So instead I'm leaving them alone!  That leaves me a whole month of working on something new.

The garden is full of tomato plants.  The trees have lots of hanging baskets of herbs.  The basil and catnip are hanging out of the way of snails and cats.  Lee bought a clematis for me and I started it growing on the wisteria. 

 

I've also been working on a small potted garden under the olive tree.  So far I have two miniature roses, two fuchsias, snapdragons, violets, peppermint, lilies, white potato vine, hollyhocks, narcissus, gladiola, and three orchids.  I only had two orchids but they needed to be split.  The one was so pot bound that all the wood chips had been consumed.  So with some ambition and a heavy knife I worked on seperating it into two plants.  Even with the roots curled they were over 30 inches long.  Needless to say $8,000 and an emergency MRI later I now have them separated.  Thank goodness I have insurance again.  Still the copay would have bought a lot of orchids.  So no more wrestling with huge orchids.  Yesterday I pulled out some irises to make a small herb garden.  Hit myself hard in the head with the unpointy end of a pitch fork.  Happy about that!  So now there are herbs closer to the kitchen.  Now to find homes for the displaced irises.  They are small, 18 inches tall, and a beautiful deep purple.  They even bloom twice a year with extra care.  They are prolific and all my friends are trying to get rid of extras from irises I gave them years ago!

 

Embroidering has been my main hobby lately.  Working on surface embroidering mostly and slowly working through the needle painting book.  Just like painting it takes time to get the hang of shading and highlights.  But I am getting tired of working small pieces.  So I am considering making embroidered quilt squares, just need to find some nice fabric.  My butterfly  making has gotten better.  Using finer wire and cotton and silk sewing threads together seems to be the best combination.  I made a butterfly to put on my name tag for EGA meetings. 

 

 

Stumpwork butterfly.

 

 

Butterfly closeup.

 

A friend found a great deal on real French bias silk ribbon. She got me four rolls for $24.00 and the rolls have 28 yards each and are 1 1/2 inches wide.  Also the YLI 4mm silk ribbon was on sale for 50 cents.  I've never had an abundance of silk ribbon to play with before.

 

 

French bias silk ribbon.

 

 

Green and pink striped silk ribbon.

 

The green and pink ribbon was a challenge to work into a flower.  At first I didn't think I could use the ribbon.  After looking at ribbon flower books I decided to tried making it into a carnation.

 

 

Silk ribbon carnation.

 

The ribbon works beautifully as a carnation making it's own calyx with it's green stripe.

 

The carnation looks so real it is hard not to sniff it.  The other ribbons will make lovely roses when

I get some time to work on them.

Currently I am working up samples for a beginners embroidery class.  Hopefully I will be able to help someone learn to embroider.

Burgundy Rose buds and the Brazilian Dimensional Embroiders Guild

 

Finished burgundy rose buds.

The Burgundy Rose buds are finished!  I wasn't paying proper attention to the large leaf and so it isn't shaded correctly. If I had followed the instructions the shading helps to shape the leaf, my leaf looks very flat.  While embroidering the leaves I realized I was still missing colors.  So I chose the greens as best I could.  The mistake I made was using two shades that were so close together that I had trouble telling them apart. So when they were embroidered it all looked the same shade.  But that taught me a lot about choosing colors.  Even with it's problems I am quite happy with the embroidery and I have learned a lot.  The book "Needle Painting Embroidery, fresh ideas for beginners" is a wonderful book, the only problem I had was with amount of thread required to do all the projects.  But if you buy the thread for just 3 or 4 projects at a time it isn't so bad.  I'm looking forward to the other projects especially the birds.  Tomorrow I will make the embroidery into a card.  I'm sure it will be beautiful.  Here are some progress pictures.

 

Filling in the leaf with shades of green.

 

 

Shading leaf.

 

Back of work.

Yesterday I was searching and found this web site http://www.brazilian-dimensional-embroidery.org/  Rather a specialized guild but interesting.  I like doing Brazilian work but not enough to join.  The EGA should give me plenty of inspiration.  The Brazilian Embroidery Guild have a free pattern every month and this months is beautiful!  Here is a link to the pattern.  http://www.brazilian-dimensional-embroidery.org/design_of_the_month.htm  The stylized flower is very pretty and it has some challenging stitches.  I've already copied it to fabric and went through my stash of Brazilian threads.  Not that I need to start another project.

Working the Romanian Point Lace project has been a little more difficult.  This morning I copied the 1/2 pattern doily and taped it together into a complete pattern.  Then I copied the pattern to a heavy fabric and couched the crocheted cord to the inside cord path.  I am having trouble understanding the second crochet cording pattern.  It uses three single crochet groups alternately, but I don't seem to quite get it.  I was thinking that it might be fun to make a more decorative braid and use it on the outside braid path.  If I can't get the recommended braid pattern I may just substitute another edging.  Here are some pictures.

 

Couching crocheted braid.

 

 

Close up of braid couching.

 

Finished couching crocheted braid to the inner braid path.

Needle Painting

 

Needle Painted Roses in progress.

 

When I woke up this morning I really wanted to do many things but decided to try needle painting using the book "Needle Painting Embroidery, fresh ideas for beginners" by Trish burr.  I decided to try the 6th lesson because I had most of the needed colors and because the author explained that she had used this lesson to teach needle painting with.  So with some closely woven white cotton fabric I traced the burgundy rosebuds design using pencil.  Then I reread the basic instructions through again before starting to embroider.  The instructions were very easy to understand and it reminded me of art classes that I took years ago.  Then with my needle waiting to start painting I went to lesson 6.  The author broke the project into sections and gave very clear instructions on how to embroider and what colors to use and the order to work.  The book really is well written and the author is a skilled teacher.  So many hours later I have finally stopped because my hands are so tired.  This technique is as easy as it is lovely.  I recommend both the book and this style of embroidery.  Very different from what I usually do but I can see this technique improving my stump work bugs.  Here are some pictures of the roses in progress.