Hello everyone I am back again. I have been very lazy with my blog for nearly a year. I have all these good intentions but never seem to do it. 

I hope you enjoy this little bag it was made for a challenge by Stitchmap. The challenge was the bag and because we are an embroidery group a necessary element was the embroidery.

The embroidery is a Brazilian embroidery I designed for a class I am going to teach next term. I can certainly not claim the stitches as mine the come from a number of different sources and are interpreted by me. The layout of the design though is all mine.

The little button is a Dorset button that I will probably change for an embroidered one; but as I had the Dorset made I used it. An excellent site to see how to make these pretty buttons is here. 

More About Hexies

More About Hexies

I am sure I have "Borrowers" in my house. How can you possible lose an embroidery mounted on a frame in the only room of the house you sew in. Well that is what has happened to the Garden hexie it has disappeared. I have looked high an low for it but it has gone. 

I decided I would work on the other 2 hexies for February before I finished the Garden.

I already showed the Silk Ribbon work sohere is the bullion stitch one

I am not to disappointed in how it turned out. I used colonial knots in the centre of the bullion flowers and the tiny pearls are from my stash.
I am sure at some stage I will either find my Garden or start another they reckon 3 times is the charm. 

Meanwhile I have finished the first of the March lessons. This one is magic I have never used this method before and it is hard to believe the Rose is done in only one colour thread. The secret is the number of plys used and whether you use half or full cross stitches.

I just love this I think it turned out great. I chose to do a yellow rose as that is my favourite colour and I am so glad I did.

More Hexies - The Knot Garden

I have been working on my Knot Garden again. Now I have at least finished one Hexie I can get back to the Garden. I was having a terrible time with the original stitching not because I cannot do the stitches but because I could not see the outline  of the design. 2 lessons learnt here.

1. Be more careful when you are transferring the design do not go at it like a bull at a gate. Make sure all the lines are transferred and you can see them properly. My ole eyes are not what they used to be.
2. Read all the instructions before doing anything!!!

I started with the Palestrina stitch and as you can see in the picture below it is terrible.

It is lumpy and bumpy and not at all attractive. I then decided to ink over the pathways, seemed like a good idea at the time and maybe it will work at a later time when I am prepared to remove all the stitching incorrectly started. The flower beds are not supposed to be Colonial knots and as I said before the Palestrina knots are revolting.

Enter Kathy Shaw's blog and her notes about the garden. At last it makes sense to me I can see the shapes happening.

So I ditched the original and started at the beginning. Here is where I am at now.

Nice neat Palestrina, though I must admit I used 2 strands of floss not just one to get the look I wanted. The pathways are starting to come together. I think this is going to be a WIP for a couple of weeks as I can only sit for so long but I think this is going to work.