Terra Rosa: Double Necked Wedding Jar & Shallow Bowl

The last few days, I have been working on Terra Rosa, designed by Elsa M. Parrish, and have completed the double necked wedding jar and stitched the shallow bowl next to it. There are six pottery items in this design: 3 vases, 1 bowl and 2 plates, plus lots of ribbons and borders all around, almost forgot about the buttes that are over the pottery. It is a fun design and the stitches used are very interesting and are extremely effective in reproducing the appearance of those Native American potteries, which I have always been very found of. I have managed to procure myself a few while traveling in the United States.

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Stitches used for the double necked wedding jar are: double hungarian stitch, continental stitch, padded gobelin and bargello patterns.

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Stitches used for the shallow bowl are: padded satin with tapered ends, continental tent stitch, milanese stitch, triangular filling and gobelin filling.

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As you have probably figured out by now, this is a line drawing design and I have to be flexible with the instructions provided, what I like to call making executive decisions along the way :-)

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If you like those two pottery designs, you have something to look forward to as the four remaining pieces of pottery are just as beautiful and are also different in shapes, motifs and colors and at the same time they all go very well together. They are olla (water jar), storage jar, flat plate and bridal basket. I will now start working on the olla (water jar).

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So, plenty of work to do before this project is all done. I will post additional photos as soon as I have something to show you :-)

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Pierrette =^..^=

Shades of Autumn: Brazilian Embroidery

A couple days ago, I got back from my framer the brazilian embroidery project called "Shades of Autumn" designed by Delma Moore.

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I really love what she has done with it. The mat and the frame brings out the embroidery very nicely and I am very pleased with the result.

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Today Gracie was brought to the same framer (when you have a good one, you don't want to change as she does excellent work) and she should be ready in approximately 3 weeks give or take a few days.

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Normally I have her put a glass over everything that she frames for me, but with Gracie we decided against it. I can't wait to see how the framing will turn out but I need to be patient :-)

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Been working diligently on my needlepoint project called "Terra Rosa" designed by Elsa M. Parrish and it is coming along nicely. I will post photos a bit later when I have a little more done to it.

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Pierrette =^..^=

Gracie: Free to swim around

Feeling like doing a Happy Dance as I have just finished stitching my first stumpwork project with Gracie. This was a Ganet Burr design written for us at EGA.
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All these EGA GCC can either be taken directly from EGA National or like in my case from EGA CyberStitchers.

Have added a close-up of Gracie herself. I will now have to keep an eye on her if I don't want her to stray away too far. Have not done all this work to loose her now :-(

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Pierrette =^..^=

Gracie: Body attached

An updated photo showing Gracie's body attached. There are two layers of padding under (with felt). I tried to take a photo in such a way that we could see the padded body. Not an easy thing to do as I tried different ways and this photo seems to be the best so far.

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Pierrette =^..^=

Gracie: Fins and body

Have managed to take a photo of the last three sections that I had to stitch for Gracie before assembling her. I had been wondering how it would come out (photo that is) because today it is very dark as we are having again thunderstorms. I am not complaining, mind you, as we had a pretty awful drought last year so all the rain that we are getting is good :-)

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On this photo you are seeing the two fins, one big and one tiny one and the body of Gracie that needed to be stitched separately because I will be adding two layers of padding under before attaching her to the main fabric.

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I need to get my felt and cut two little pieces, one larger than the other, the larger one being on top of the smaller one, then I will make a long bullion to create her mouth and a few beads for her eyes as I want her to be able to see where she is going and perhaps also see her own reflection as she is quite pretty and gracious, which perhaps is where her name is coming from (big smile).

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After that part is complete, I will be attaching the two fins to her body, then will be adding the two leaves, one on each side of her and will finish it up with some bubbles, which will be graciously coming out of her lovely mouth :-)

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So, a lot of finishing work to be done today before I can let her loose in the water.

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Pierrette =^..^=

Gracie: Wired seaweed leaves completed

I have not been feeling very energetic these past few days so only managed to stitch the two seaweed leaves, the ones with wires. They took forever to complete, seems to me, having to tack the wire first, then do a blanket stitch all around them, and with the larger one on the left had to do some chain stitch for padding and then satin stitch over and for the other one on the right a series of stem stitch.

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Have now to do the two fins, large one and smaller one, with wires too and then will be closer to completion. Will still have to do the body of the fish and then the putting every parts together and out for a Happy Dance :-)

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Pierrette =^..^=

Gracie: Sand close-up

Decided to take another photo hoping that this time around we could see the ecru French knots better. We can see the darker ones allright, but the lighter ones are a bit more difficult to see. This photo is not quite what I was hoping for, but I suppose that I will have to be happy with it (big sigh).

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Pierrette =^..^=

Gracie with sand added

Wow, that was something, adding all those French knots to represent the sand. I have been using two different colors of DMC, one being ecru and the other one a very light tan, both DMC. Looking at this photo we can't see very well the ecru French knots, but they are there.
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Next will be working the wired elements: two seaweed leaves and two fins for Gracie. After that will be Gracie's body, which won't be a wired element, but a padded one.
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Then, putting everything together and Gracie will be able to swim forever :-)
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Pierrette =^..^=

Bargello Scissor Case & You Made my Day Award

This is a little scissor case that I made a long time ago and for some reason forgot to include on my blog. I love bargello and this was my first one. The threads used were Watercolours by Caron.

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Whenever I do bargello the time flies as it has that hypnoptic feeling, going up and down, up and down and that feeling is increased when you use threads that have multiple colors in them.

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I have been chatting a lot about stumpwork recently and that made me think of Celeste who is also an EGA CyberStitchers. She has done quite a bit of stumpwork (actually she says that this is one of the thing that she loves the best doing) as well as wonderful embroidery projects. Many of her projects come from the Australian magazine called Inspirations, one of my very favorite magazine.

I have all the issues and have done a few of their projects (I wish there were more hours in the day), but Celeste has really done many as you will be able to see when you go visit her photo album.


I would like today to give Celeste the "You Made my Day Award" because she is such a wonderful stitcher and I enjoy visiting her photo album so much. She is a real source of inspiration to so many of us. Enjoy!

Pierrette =^..^=

Gracie: Fish section

I am so tired right now, I can't even think straight. I was taking a break earlier on and at the same time was reading the rest of the instructions for this project and was telling my husband that I was not out of the woods yet. You know what he replied to me? He said "You are always in the woods" and I had to laugh at that one because it is so true because as soon as I get out of the woods by finishing a project I immediately get into another one. That man of mine is not a fool (grinning).

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So, on this photo you can see part of Gracie's little body. All the rest is done separately and then attached to the fabric. I have two fins to do and two leaves that will be attached later on. For Gracie's body I need to stitch it and then pad before tacking to the fabric.

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Before that, I have some sand to do using French knots, so I am not out of the woods yet. It takes forever to stitch because the main stitch used is stem stitch and I can tell you that it takes a lot of them to cover a little surface.

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I will be taking the rest of the day off and blieve me it won't be a luxury because I really really need it at this point. Listening to Mozart has helped some to get me going when I was feeling like stopping because my back was hurting.

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Next photo will be with the sand.

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Pierrette =^..^=