The flowers are blooming

OOOH! I'm really pleased with how our flowers are blooming.

This week we added 2 flowers, the one on the right side of the canvas is the furthest in the distance. It needed a subtle pattern that wouldn't compete with the background or the rest of the flowers. It also needed the pretty shading to show through. Laid Filling Stitch to the rescue!



The daffodil on the left provided quite a challenge. I wanted it to be soft so that the center of the flower would be the star but I wanted the petals to separate from one another. Lots of experimenting later and I found the perfect combination of stitches. Both are very similar starting with a diamond grid but then are embellished differently. The addition of metallics and beads create the allusion that some petals come slightly forward while others recede.

The center of the flower is just too cute if I say so myself. I found wonderful mini trim at the last tradeshow that I am in love with! That combined with a field of folded ribbon roses gives the center of the flower the punch that it needs. Of course the addition of a Swarovski Margarita doesn't hurt :-)

I'm off to create more blooms and blossoms; we're almost there!

Mellow Yellow Class #1

This was the weekend — the first Mellow Yellow Class! Melissa Shirley designed this great purse canvas that we unveiled at our trunkshow in April.

I am designing a stitch guide for it and teaching it sort of as a mystery class. Every few weeks we meet and I unveil the next section stitched.

First we tackled the background.



It's unconventional to stitch the background first in needlepoint, but there are times it is a great solution. Our background pattern is a fun repeat of octagons. It's a lot easier to count octagons throughout the background when you don't have to work around previous stitches. We just stitched, counted across open areas and viola, the background began to come to life.

The pattern uses 3 threads to complete the stitch. First a metallic and then vineyard silk in beautiful Scotch Stitches followed by little accents of an overdye silk. All combined it makes for an elegant background reminiscent of a quilted Chanel bag — perfect for a girlie pink handbag and just what I wanted.

A fun time was had by all. Stayed tuned and in a few weeks there will be more to see!