An Oriental Tea Garden...........38 years later

I hope this finds all of you well and that you have not suffered from this dreadful coronavirus.

I hope you all have found a way to "hang on" and to get through this difficult time. 

As many of you have seen through the news media, one positive thing this virus has brought out......

is the spark of creativity in many. I hope after this has all passed, that everyone will still hang on to 

their imagination and keep creating.  

I decided this year that I have 3.......yes 3, embroidery 

projects that I want to work on and finish  by the end of this year...........

are many of you chuckling at this thought??  It's okay.....

I completely understand that 1 is probable......but 3??

Anyhow, I purchased this lovely kit 38 years ago.....just before marriage,

3 children, and a life detour away from this kit..............now ....dear husband has slowed down.....children have grown and flown,

 I dug it out of my stash.......still pristine......unopened........

and ready. 

It is from the Sunset company and titled, Oriental Tea Garden.

I fell in love with it at the needlework store the instant I saw it so many years ago.

I have always wanted a lovely pond.......a shaded place to enjoy fish and lovely flowers.

Southwest Texas is not an ideal place for such a luxury.

This is our actual pond...........crooked mesquite trees that give an interesting look, hang over the pond,

but do not offer much shade in the 100 plus Texas heat.  However, it is a wonderful quiet place to sit in the early morning/late afternoon.  I have tried to plant various flowers along the pond edge......but

with these wild woods.....many varmints eat everything I plant.  So I try to make

wildscapes that go with the area instead.  

There are pretty gold fish that I enjoy to watch

and out here in the middle of "dry" nowhere,  bullfrogs

come to visit the pond

However, through the years of embroidery, I have discovered that I do not like to 

embroider with yarn......such as in crewel work........which this kit was meant for and 

it came with all of the yarn. But if you have hung around and have read my blog over the many  years.......you know........I always change things around and embroider the way I would like the design to be. At least with this pond scene, I can add anything I want with needle and thread.........no heat, no varmints can take it away.

I matched embroidery floss with the colors of the yarns.  The first thing I decided to embroider 

was the tree.  And I am pleased with how it has turned out.  But then........I realized.....there is so much green, brown and gray in this project.........I want more color, 

so this is where I started changing things up.........a bit.

This is how the package photo shows the finished design.  If  you look where I placed the arrows,

I did not like to have just green bushes in front of the window.  Also, I did not like the faint blue

roof top.

I decided to add french knot flowers and daisy flowers underneath the window instead.

I  chose a brighter color for the roof, and I used perle cotton floss for the rocks. 

I have not worked with perle cotton floss much.....but for large areas such as this, it worked great.

I also wanted to see Koi goldfish and lilypads on the stream. However,   I did not want the embroidered goldfish to look like they were laying on top of the water, and I felt that would happen if I satin stitched them.   With the fabric being tinted and shaded, I drew a few fish and worked a simple outline stitch on them to make them look as if they were under the water.  I then made some lilypads.

This little "change up" I am happy with.

If you look at the piece from a distance, the fish do not glare out

......which is what I was hoping that they wouldn't. 

I also worked the bridge......pretty much as the pattern shows.

This has been such an enjoyable piece to work on. 

So now..........tell me........have you been side tracked with the virus

and have found creative time on your hands?  

What are you creating?  Are you embroidering, crocheting, knitting, 

.......painting? 

I would love to hear!

Stay safe dear friends!