Summer Garden Completed

Oh goodness, where have the last two weeks gone - I'm sure it wasn't that long ago that I last posted???

Anyway, I'm celebrating today. Not only is it the first day of spring (and the sun is actually shining too), but I've finished my Summer Garden project as well. It was really enjoyable and I'm sure now that it will be the first of many drawn thread projects now. (And someday I might even work up to a Judy Dixon piece - okay, maybe not for quite a while yet!!)

Cheeky Penguin

I completed this cheeky little penguin for a charity card project on CrossStitchForum today. At the end of March, one of our members will be taking them all to LOROS, a hospice in Leicestershire, to help with their fundraising. If you think you might be interested in joining in too, just come on over to CSF and we'll be delighted to have you take part too.

More of Summer Garden

I've been getting on really well with this over the past week. And actually, it's really not that difficult to do (fatal to say that - I bet it goes wrong now). You do need to count and count again, before any cutting, but the actual stitching is not difficult and really very enjoyable.

Here are some updates on this week's progress:

And now for the scarey cutting bit:



That's me reached over half way with this project now :-)

Summer Garden Drawn Thread Project

This week I started a (yet another!) new project. This one's a bit different as it's my first try at drawn thread work, which is downright scary to do at times!!!

I'm working on a SAL with Serinde from Cross Stitch Forum (although she hasn't started yet and I'm feeling very lonely - come on girl, get stitching!!!). We're working on the Summer Garden Garden project from Patricia Bage's beautiful book "Beginner's Guide to Drawn Thread Embroidery".

So here are my updates so far:

The fabric is 28 count linen and floss is DMC stranded and perle, and Caron Waterlillies, Rose Quartz. I started with some satin stitches

and added some satin blocks to 'hold' the cut areas

Then the moment of truth!! I snipped the fabric and drew out the threads. Not really difficult, but knowing that if you get it wrong, the whole thing is ruined is quite terrifying! I was going cross-eyed trying to count threads to make sure I was cutting in the right place.

Once cut, there are some lovely decorative stitches in this project

And here's where I've got to. The beads are Mill Hill and were quite lovely (and surprisingly easy) to add into the design.

More updates on this soon.