Saturday, June 27, 2009

Corner of flowers.

This section of the curtain took me much longer that I thought it should. It may be that I had just made the work so detailed and so monotonous. I chose 2 colors for the chain stem and the same 2 colors for the fishbone stitched leaves. The alternating of colors I think is really what took so long. I had not worked 2 colors simultaneously before.

I like how the flowers turned out on these.




The pattern is adapted from a set that I found that were again not wonderful to print but were ok to sketch onto the fabric from. I have such a habit of saving images that I love or that I want to draw from, the bad part of that is that I often forget where I found them at. Click to see larger images.
I drew the image from a pattern adapted from this set:

And then there was Gnome.

After seeing so many images all over Craftster and Flickr I had decided to add a bit of whimsy to these curtains of mine. I stumbled across a copy of Aunt Martha's Merry Modern Mushrooms #3775. The patterns were not photographed great but enough so that I could draw from them as inspiration for my little gnome man in his garden.


The whole scene turned out cute and I decided that I would make him a little gnome bride too on the other side of the curtain. She is another story though as her side took on a life all of it's own. I keep going back to this trying to decide if it is finished or not. I think I may just go back and add 2 more fern fronds with leaves to add height and to balance his wife's side better.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Silly dog!

I suppose to be honest it was yesterday when I drove home to find our dog running free. She has been a escape artist since day one. I came home and there she was looking so happy to see me but running towards me from the side of our house?!? How surprised was I? Very. We have a dog tight chain link fence, my dear sweet husband that had been helping me combat the over running weeds in my garden had brought the garden bin back into the backyard at my request had not re-latched the gate and to be fair, neither had I. Well so I was surprised to see her all running at me so happy that I was home. I truly wonder what she spent her day doing out and loose. What was she up to?


Needless to say... Willow (our cat) was not at all happy about the whole situation, she is an indoor cat untill we get her fixed and was very vocal about Sky being outside all day loose and her all locked inside the house on her plushy spot.


*Sigh*

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Star light, Star bright...

In my effort to re-post all of the finished embroidery from the curtains I've been working on I next come to another pattern that I pulled from the Craftster stitchalong (although I believe I was the only one to post anything for it) I just love how this pattern turned out, so vibrant and colorful.


I think I'll get a few more close up shots of these for eye-candy purposes.
You can also click on the pictures to make them large.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

In the Beginning..

I suppose to be fair I should begin with how this project came to be. A few years ago I happened upon one of the most fun web sites that I had found in forever, Craftster. I began to check out the posts and found the needlework category; it had been years since I had really stitched. In fact since High school and then I was not very good at it. A few years ago we purchased a house and I have been trying to update and make it my own. Replacing curtains has been on the list of things to do and I thought since my grandmother had given me her old sewing machine that I would put it to good use, I zipped out some basic curtains and decided to decorate them with embroidery. I found the stitchalong area and decided to participate in the make your own hex stitchalong: http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=217497.0
I picked out a few designs that I liked and decided to give them a try. This was the first one that I stitched up:

Even after I went back and filled with the French knots I still feel unsatisfied with it. I decided to make a different one and I was really thrilled with how it turned out.


I tried to use different stitches that I had not tried before. There are 6 different stitches in this one.

That’s how the beginning of these crazy curtains was. The plan I had only stored in my mind has since really come along way from these humble beginnings. I'll post more images of the curtains in the coming days. And when all is posted and finished I will post the final pictures of them happily hanging in my kitchen window. The tail end is taking forever since I keep getting side tracked with other things. I already have a new massive project brewing in my mind...After I make some new Christmas ornaments for 2009 to break up the project run.

Going to take New pictures

Ok, I'm just a little excited to go take pictures of this project. It is, however, raining and cloudy. I think I'm prepared to battle that though.

But look what I saw at the Zoo...


To me it looked like a perfect place for a few faries and a frog with a top hat would sit to have a tea party. Laugh if you must but I thought it was such a pretty little spot to happen upon at the Zoo.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

So I have these curtains

I've been working on kitchen curtains and they have taken quite some time. I've posted finished parts in Crafster and also in Flickr, I am creating this blog to post the final project in detail and so that I can re-photograph all of the finished parts without re-posting in those forums completely.

In all these have taken around 2 years to come to a completion. Hours upon hours have gone into them and I have learned so many new stitches and techniques on my journey. As I near completion I still feel that they are not quite done and I have the desire to continue without a plan but I think that I will just wash them, hang them in the window and just live with them and enjoy them for a while.. Let them soak in if you will.
For me this is an epic project and really making a family heirloom that I hope will be kept if for no other reason than the work that was involved in the creation.

And now I have a small Work in progress shot to share on the final part of the curtain that needs stitching once finished with this section I'm going to wash them, iron them and photograph them (using a better borrowed camera) for posting.


They are already more simple than I originally planned but I love these pretty little flowers all the same.

The Beginning

In this, web page I hope to share what I do with anyone that would care to enjoy or look and learn. I have only the needlework skills that I was taught when I was little by my Grandmother and what I have learned on the wide web. I am by trade an office worker, but I am truly an artist. I love embroidery and all that it offers as an art medium.
I once enjoyed painting but lost the time to create it, when I dabble into that I'll share those efforts here too. I consider myself an extremely armature gardener and will share my miss-adventures and triumphs in garden-land. Finally I also love antiques, second hand shops and old toys; on occasion I'll share great finds too. I hope that this will be fun and new type of adventure.
I am however not always spot-on with my thoughts and postings so we will see how blogging fits with me. I have a tendency to be a recluse and by all means I imagine that this will be no different.



Ahhhhh.