Tara on one of my wall

Just for the fun of it, I thought of taking another photo of Tara now that I have found the wall where I wanted to display her. It is actually in the upstairs hallway. The lighting is a bit different so we are now seeing her a bit differently too colorwise.

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I wanted to let the self-adhesive cloth hanger dry completely before attempting to put her on a wall as I did not want to see her crashing down and damage her lovely dress or even worst, hurt herself :-(

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Pierrette =^..^=

Tara with a fabric frame

I needed a break from Shalimar so I decided to finish Tara with a round fabric frame that I made following the instructions I had read in the Embroidery Canada, Spring 2007 magazine from an article called "It's time to display" written by Susan Donn.

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This was really not very difficult to do and looks pretty good. You need to mount both fabrics on foam core or in my case I used some mat similar to what the framers use and cut each piece the size that I needed. Then, I added some padding to each one (next time around I will add more padding under the stitched piece so that I can add a thicker cord around it) and added my stitched Tara on the smaller circle and my chosen fabric on the larger one, and laced both individually. After that I added a brown craft paper on the back of the bigger circle. I glued Tara on the bigger circle and made some cording and added to both. All that remains for me to do now is to glue a picture hanger (cloth with self adhesive), let it dry and then hang on my wall.

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It is really a nice way to finish a project and it is much less expensive than having it framed at the framer, mostly for a little project like this one. This can be done for any shape project whether it is rectangular, triangular, square, etc.

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I could also have chosen some fabric with prints on it, but I wanted to keep it simple and elegant. It really depends on the effect that we want to achieve.

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I was hoping to receive my threads and canvas for Mystery in a Corner by Gay Ann Rodgers, but the postman came and they were not there :-(

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Pierrette =^..^=

Spring Bouquet Tissue Holder

I had a bit of a strange week and have not done all that much stitching. After Tara, I looked through some of my magazines and books for one day and then another day and another day for my next small project and found quite a few that I would like to work on but specially one that I really liked, so got myself all ready (fabric, tracing, etc.) only to realize that I did not have the threads that I needed, so had to put that project aside until I receive the threads, which have now been ordered.

While going through the magazines and books I saw this tissue holder and thought that it would be quite practical to keep my tissues clean in my purse, so decided to give it a go. The last few days have been really dark (overcast) and when I selected the threads for this project, they looked fine but when I started stitching with them, I did not like them, so did a bit of frogging and redone part of it with new shades of the same colors.

I have finally managed to finish my tissue holder on a wonderful sunny day with temperatures outside around 70, so rushed to take a couple of photos. The first photo above is without the tissues and the second photo below with a little pack of tissues inside.

Almost forgot to mention that this design is from Angela Watson of Queensland that I found in an Inspirations magazine. They have so many wonderful projects in those magazines that I am sure that I could be perfectly happy if I were to take all my projects from them. Well, maybe not, as they are mostly embroidery and I like to do a bit of this and a bit of that as you must all know by now if you had a look at my blog in its entirety (big smile)


I am now hoping that I will soon receive my threads so that I can get started on the project that I initially wanted to work on which is not a big project so that should not take too long to complete. In the meantime, will need to decide what project I feel like working on. While I am thinking about that, will go outside take a bit of sun before it goes away, AGAIN.

Pierrette =^..^=

Tara

After having worked on many needlepoint projects recently and still have a lot of unfinished ones that I need to attend to, I just had to do something else before I went bonkers. I just can't work on the same techniques over and over before I feel an urgent need to move to something else. I wanted a project that would be different than what I normally do, something that would challenge me a bit and from which I would learn something new, so a couple days ago I started going through books and magazines and when I saw Tara I knew that this was the one I wanted to do.

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Tara started well, but then I got to where I had to appliqué little sections and I was tripping all over myself. My fingers just did not seem to be able to turn the fabric and hold it long enough to tack it to the background fabric. I used up just about all the patience I have, but somehow, not sure how, managed to do it :-)

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Tara is a Devaki Parasuramar of South Australia's design that I found in an old Inspirations magazine. When I saw the photo, I knew that I had some ribbons that were similar to the ones she used, but a different color and I also had the background fabric, trigger cloth which is a fabric often used in Brazilian embroidery. I have changed a few things but for the most part have stuck pretty much to the original design.

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Working on this design made me wonder how people manage to work on miniature projects. I don't think that I could manage it even in a very good day.

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While I was searching for some interesting small projects, I found another one which I will now start after I clear up all the mess I made with this one.

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Pierrette =^..^=

Rose Vine Ornament

This is a Wendie Young design that I have slightly changed to make a Christmas ornament out of it.

Pierrette =^..^=

Fabric Envelope

I have made this embroidered envelope for my very good friend Terry so that she can carry some of her little treasures with her. I know that she has been carrying her Halloween ID card and an embroidered angel with her in her purse, so now she will have an embroidered container to put them in. Hope she likes it.

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This is an adaptation of an Inspiration magazine design by Brenda Ryan (magazine #51)

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Pierrette =^..^=

Seeds of Love: A Brenda Ryan design

Here is the little coin purse all finished. I must say that this was really a lot of fun to make.

Not that long ago, seems to me, I was mostly doing needlepoint while my good friend Terry was mostly doing embroidery. She wanted to do needlepoint and I helped her with some of her projects and I wanted to learn embroidery as I loved so much what she was stitching. The end result is that Terry is now also doing needlepoint and loving it and I am doing embroidery and absolutely loving every single minute of it and now can't understand why I had not started doing it earlier.

I have included a photo with the coin purse opened showing the embroidery.

There is such a sweet detail that the designer, Brenda Ryan added that I did not want you to miss it and turned the photo 180° degrees so that you can have a look at the little flower face looking at you when you are either putting something in or taking something out of the little coin purse.

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Brenda suggested it as a little coin purse, but there are lots of other uses for it. The size of the little coin purse is a little over 4½" by 4½".

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There are two other designs from Brenda that I will also be making. One is the same size but with a different embroidery and the third one is a bigger size with another embroidery. Different fabrics will also be used to make them.

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Pierrette =^..^=

Seeds of Love: A Brenda Ryan design

One of the projects I am currently working on is "Seeds of Love", a Brenda Ryan design that can be found in the Australian magazine called 'Inspirations", issue 51, starting on page 66.

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The project consists of 3 different fabric coin purses or anything else that you may want to put inside. This is one of the design. I think it is just darling. Those could also make lovely gifts using different kinds of fabrics and also creating your own design for the front part of it.

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Now that the embroidery has been completed, I need to construct the little coin purse, which will probably be the next photo I add to my blog.

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By the way if you want to have a look to some of the cover page of the Inspirations magazines, you may go to http://www.countrybumpkin.com.au/ . I have my subscription with them. They also have kits, wonderful books and so much more. I am a big fan of them. It seems to me that everything they do is just wonderful.

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Pierrette =^..^=

A Cottage Garden

I am doing a happy dance this morning as I have just finished the stitching part of "A Cottage Garden".

This is a Kris Richards of South Australia design taken from the fantastic Australian magazine called Inspirations, issue 53.

I must say that I have learned a lot doing this project and it will greatly help me when I tackle other similar projects from them.

This Cottage Garden will be turned into a needlecase. I believe that I can never have too many. What I want to do is keep different sorts of needles in different needlecases, so when I want to find some straw/milliners or embroidery/crewel or tapestry, etc. I will get one of my needlecases and start stitching.

In this design, here is the list of stitches that have been used: blanket stitch pinwheel, bullion knot, bullion loop, couching, detached chain, fly stitch, French knots, granitos, rosette stitch, running stitch, satin stitch, stem stitch and straight stitch.

One book that I have that has been real helpful for helping me along with those stitches is the book called "The Embroidery Handbook: The Ultimate Guide to Thread Embroidery. This is again an Inspirations book published by Country Bumpkin Publications.

Now, I will need to get busy doing the finishing. Will have a look at my fabric and see what will go well with it. When it is all done, will add another photo.

Pierrette =^..^=

Keepsakes: Bookmark

The Australian magazine called "Inspirations" is the one I actually love the best. I have managed to purchase every copy from the very beginning. I have since subscribed to the magazine to make sure I don't miss any upcoming issues.

I was thinking recently that it is one thing to have all this "inspiration" and quite another to start making some of those wonderful projects, so since I love to read, I decided to make this lovely bookmark. The project was in the issue #50 on pages 58 through 63. Here is a link to the magazine:
http://www.countrybumpkin.com.au/product_info.php?products_id=433667 and if you click on the magazine itself to make it bigger, you can actually see the little bookmark.

I used silk dupion in one of my favorite colors and found some lovely silk ribbons that matched nicely with the fabric. It was quite easy to make and did not take all that much time.

Pierrette =^..^=

http://community.webshots.com/user/sunshineplus

I was looking for a small gift that I could make for one of my good friend as a thank you gift for all her kindnesses. She had told me at one point in time that she did not have any pincushions and I thought that she would probably enjoy getting something like that.

I remembered having seen that lovely pincushion in one of the Australian Inspirations magazine, more precisely the #50 issue, pages 74 to 79.
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I was also able to find a link where there was a wonderful steps-by-steps instructions explaining very clearly how to make this pumpkin shape, so if anyone else is interested in creating something similar to mine, that should make things easier for them. Here is the link for that tutorial .

I was also told by Margaret H. that there is also another free tutorial which is a lovely Periwinkle pincushion designed by Jan Kerton .

I have just received a message from my friend today letting me know that she had just received it and absolutely adores it :-)

Happy pincushion making, everybody!

Pierrette =^..^=

Webshot photo album

http://community.webshots.com/user/sunshineplus