A welcome sign

I always have a habit of buying something I like, especially if it's on sale, and then storing it away,..... and then forgetting about it. Looking for my buttonhole attachment, I found this wall hanging in a drawer still in it's plastic wrap and label. I think it was around 12 years ago when I purchased it! The original price on it was $3.97 and I got it on clearance for $1.50. I do remember painting a couple of them and giving them to friends. Now I wish I had bought more,.....what a great thing for etsy, now that I know about the wonderful world of Internet.{:

With the potted plants and watering can, this would be perfect to paint and hang in my greenhouse. I wish there was a way to hang it on the door of the greenhouse. There are only panels and frame work. Any ideas as to how to hang it anywhere in there?
I especially love the little bees with their plastic wings! They are on wires that make them look like they are buzzing around.

The plastic winged dragon flies are so sweet. They too are on wires to give an appearance of flying. I wish I could have the assistance of Marjolein Bastin! She could make this come to life! I guess I will get my box of paints out and work on a couple of things at a time. I don't want to rush finishing it and make it look like paint was just thrown on it( that's usually what happens when I get in a hurry to paint something.

busyness or bloggers block?

Hope everyone is having a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. Here I am posting without one picture of embroidery to show! I have plenty to stitch on, just nothing finished yet.{: This is a busy time of my life right now. Graduation for one child,my nest is almost empty}: (tears)and school finishing for another with him wanting to get a summer job. I guess it's from the anxiety of all of this and other detours of life.... I feel so run down! So I am going to spend this week, reading all of you blogger's wonderful posts, getting the house clean, the weeds cleared and maybe some stitching done. I hopefully will have something to show and to write about by then. But please drop a line or two and let me know what you are doing!

Would you like to see the first things I embroidered?

Going though my linen closet, I pulled out the very old stash of some of the things I first embroidered starting at the age of 10. With some of you starting embroidery, I thought you might like to see how extremely bad I was starting out. Of course, being young, I thought every thing I stitched was a masterpiece and often gave them away as presents to my family. I shudder to think what they must have thought. So do not blame me for your sore eyes after taking a look at these primitive and very stained pieces. I have them soaking now after I saw how bad they looked!

This I a dresser scarf that I stitched when I was 10. My mom and I were in Benjamen Franklin's store(do you remember those stores?) when we found a pile of the ready to embroider pieces. She let me pick the piece I liked, let me pick out the floss I wanted, and I could not wait to get home to stitch. I don't think she saw me all weekend except at the supper table. I stayed in my room, stitching away!
Here is the close up. I did not know how to do french knots, satin stitch, or how to make tiny stitches for the little tie on the dog's head. My mother would sit and show me over and over. She was so patient.

As the years went by, I got better and when I was a freshman in high school, I made a practice cloth of some of my favorite transfer designs. (can you tell I didn't have a boy friend at that time?)As you can see, the unfinished red dye on some. I am so glad they don't use red dye anymore! I never finished it,(was it the boy friend?) but it was a good thing to practice on. I spent many hours doing this. I think you can click on the picture for a better look, but beware!

One thing I have noticed is that I used more brilliant and bright colors when I was a young girl than I do now. I loved striking blues and deep reds.

I hope these stains come out! I almost did not post this piece!

I was blessed with a sweet and kind Home Economics teacher, Mrs. Ellis. She always encouraged us to get things ready for the upcoming fair each year. She would then take our things and enter them. Above is a tablecloth that I won a blue ribbon for. I used this cloth so much through the years, that the middle has holes and if you take a closer look, you can see the threads getting bare. I still love this design and am going to trace off the pattern so that I can make another. The center has a big ring with criss- cross lines going through it. I don't enter my things at the fair now, however.

And here is that bird pattern I had talked about in a recent post. This is one of Aunt Martha's wonderful transfer designs.

And now here we are at present date. This is a dresser scarf I made for a gift store in town. The lady loved my embroidery and had me make a dozen of these and several other items. They always sold and I was very busy. She would meet with me once a month to go over the next designs and what she would like in her store. I loved this. The store has been closed for a few years now and she has moved away. Notice my color change now that I am older?

Another kind of embroidery I love is cut work. This work is done on the end edges of the tea pot scarf in the recent photo. This is the kind of work I did for the designer in Boston and for a lady in Virginia. She had beautiful white dresses and trusted me to cut and embroider on them. The designer in Boston had silk garments and sent matching silk thread for me to work with. They also trusted me cutting the garments to stitch.

And you have seen this picture before, this is the tablecloth I am working on to finish. I am getting excited as it is getting closer to getting done. But you can see the style of my embroidery has changed over the years. I started the traditional way and then found my own voice in how I wanted to express the stitches. That is what I would like to encourage each of you to do. When you find your own style, it just makes you feel so much better when you stitch. It is a piece of yourself!.....but as I always say..... enjoy the process! I feel that is what it is all about!

A great stitch resource

I was taught the basic stitches of embroidery by my mom when I was 10. As the years passed, I learned more stitches either from kits I had purchased or books. I am still learning each day!

One of the best stitch guides I like to refer to is this book, The Readers Digest Complete Book Of Embroidery. It is full of projects, stitch instruction, and information. The stitches are shown in detail, step by step.

There are beautiful projects and also more challenging skills information when one is ready to try something new. There are a great number of embroidery books with all the information one needs to get their hands busy. A lot of these can be found at your local library, as well as on-line. The best thing to do after you have found something you want to try, is practice. Keep stitching the stitch over and over until you feel comfortable stitching it and it looks the way you want.

Gideon and Gabriel

First of all, I want to thank you all for always dropping by and leaving a comment to say hi and you always have such nice things to say. You truly make my day! I am so excited that some of you already embroider and some of you are getting started! I am still working on that tablecloth, so I am digging into my stash to have something to show you until I get my job complete.

Can you believe, I have been working on this cross stitch rooster for 4 years?? I once had a very sweet and very old rooster who looked like this at the time I bought the kit. Sadly he went to sleep in a nest box and never woke up. Since then, I have a couple of other roosters name Gideon and Gabriel. I work on this rooster when I do not have a customer to sew for. The first year, I had napkins and a dresser scarf to monogram. The 2nd year, a couple of dresses. The 3rd year a baby quilt and now this year a tablecloth. Once in a while, in the wee hours of morning, I will do a square before I retire.
Here is Gideon. Just the sweetest old guy ever. He loves to be picked up and croons while I carry him around.

Here is Gabriel. He runs out to greet me every time I approach the chicken yard, hoping I have something good for him to eat. He also eats out of my hand and loves to be held. Actually, I babied the ducks and chickens when they were little, so they all like to be petted and made over. Well the weekend is upon me and I am going to be busy, busy.I can't wait to see what you all have been stitching on. So post pictures when you finish! Have a wonderful weekend!

Embroidery Floss....my palette

In my last post, some of you have asked me about the amount of embroidery floss I have on hand. I have a ton!{: For several reasons. I have been embroidering for 20 years for other people. From a clothing designer in Boston, customers in Georgia and Virginia, as well as local customers. Floss is my tool, just as a mechanic needs tools or a chef needs his knives and equipment. I also make sure I have more than one skein of the same color. I keep a list of the colors I have and how many. When I start getting down to one skein color only, I buy more to replenish it. Some also had mentioned wal-mart not handling floss anymore. The same has happened at the wal-mart I shop at. With other stores being 100 miles away, I have started ordering on line.


I don't want my threads to get tangled, so I keep them in large zip-lock bags, in which I have punched holes in the bag's side and place them in large notebooks. I have a couple of notebooks for new unused floss and I keep my used and cut skeins in a separate notebook.

I have a bag for each color group. Reds, greens, blues, pinks, ect. I have a list inside of each bag that tells me what color and color number are in that bag and how many skeins of that color I have.

I also have different types of floss for different types of work. The pearl cotton pictured above, I use for crewel work. I also have silk floss which I used a lot for the garments for the designer in Boston. I worked with them for 5 years, so I have quite a bit of that. To avoid confusion, I did not work in Boston. I would send my drawings and stitch samples to them, they would mark what they liked and send the garments to me. Some of my work has graced the "walkways" of New York. {:

I also have a color skein book on hand for a quick reference to color matching. It comes in handy when a customer is trying to decide on color. ....... Well, that's just about it. For all of you who are embroidering, I would just say, find the floss that you like to work with best. Does it go through the needle and material well without fraying? I prefer DMC floss. It is high quality. Most important..... Just enjoy yourself!

I see french knots!

This weekend was filled with remembering the mothers and grandmothers in our family..... and for me, the time when I was a young new mother, rocking our babies to sleep. I really miss that time! I also love this time of year. Right between the cold winter winds and the harsh hot summer. Every thing is crisp and alive, and walks around the grounds are always so enjoyable.

Our holly bush has grown quite a bit in one year and the blossoms that it are now blooming look just like pearls among the red berries. What a pretty picture to embroider in french knots, don't you think? {:


The light and dark greens of the leaves really set off the white and red of the berries and blossoms. The birds have just about picked off all of the berries. What colors do you find inspiring? What do you find more inspirational....flowers? sunsets? the sky? ..... I can't wait to hear!