Desire - stitching part done and hunting for cabochons with rim sets starts in earnest

I have now completed the stitching part of Desire, #13 of Susan Portra's Cabochon Series by adding the couching stitches to the long long tramé stitches and need to concentrate on finding the five 10mm cabochons with golden rim sets to attach to the canvas. I will also have to dig and see if I can find what appears to be 37 golden bugle beads. I know that I have some, but not sure that I have that many, but those can be found easily enough. What I am really surprised about is how difficult, if not impossible, to find the golden 10mm rim sets to attach to the canvas for the cabochons. I have been looking on different web sites and some seem to have the cabochons, but no rim sets in sight. Some designers use them so they have to be available somewhere, the question is where exactly. If I ever find some I will have to purchase a big quantity of them as I don't want to have to go hunting for them again and they really look lovely on a project and make a statement.

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I must be one of the worst person to try to find something on the web as I never seem to find anything and my friend Terry finds everything she is looking for and then some, so Terry took pity on me and offered to have a look for me. Sure hope she is more successful than I have been so far.

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It has been a long time since I have worked a needlepoint project that is mostly beads, but I have just the one next to me right now. It is a mini stocking called Patches of Snow, all white and gold, a Kaitlyn Marie Designs. I am thinking about this coming Christmas and this sure would look nice for my tree. I really need to work on some smaller projects as I have been involved with bigger ones lately and sure need a break. Instant gratification or almost :-)

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Time to have a look at those bugle beads and keep dreaming about cabochons with rim sets :-)

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Pierrette =^..^=

Desire: Moving along

Now, it is starting to look like Susan Portra's finished ornament. Still a bit more work to do like some couching to add on the long tramé stitches and the bugle beads and of course the hard to find 5 cabochons with rimsets.

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Am still wondering about the finishing that has been done on it as to what it is exactly. I know that I can probably do it if I can only get a clear picture in my mind as to what it is. I will probably have to sleep on it but there is no rush before the ornament is all completed and for that I need to find those cabochons with rimsets or substitute them with some other stitches. If someone who is reading this entry have some ideas as to where I can find them, please let me know. I can be easily contacted at LovetoStitch99@comcast.net

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Pierrette =^..^=

I stitched two additional rows last evening, took a photo and then got distracted and never added to my blog.

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So far on this project, I have used Fyre Werks on the first row (gold), Crystal Rays (the larger one with reddish colors), Fyre Werks in black for the second and fourth rows and Neon Rays for the last and fifth row (wine color).

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This morning have added a sixth row using some DMC Perle #5 in red (not in the photo).

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Should be able to finish it today, except for the cabochons with rimsets which I don't have and will see if I can find some gold bugle beads all the same size. I think I may have some but have not yet looked for them.

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I have been looking at the finishing on the photo and been wondering how exactly it was done. There seems to be some gold thread laced somehow. It looks very good, just not sure how it has been done as I can't see enough of it :-(

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Pierrette =^..^=

Desire: A Susan Portra Cabochon Series design

I felt that I needed a bit of a change and remembered this lovely and much smaller project that I had purchased on Ebay some time ago.
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I have always loved Bargello as whenever I work on such pieces it is so easy for me to just loose myself, as I just want to do one more row, oh, just one more. I think it has that effect on so many of us.
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This is a photo of the bit I had the time to stitch this morning. It is a Susan Portra design, which she made for Rainbow Gallery in 1993 (publication date). The design is called "Desire" and is #13 of her Cabochon Series. When I saw it on Ebay, I fell in love with it and was lucky enough to win it, which is far from always beeing the case as I have often been outbid by others. I have no idea what the others of the series look like as have never seen them.
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It is always a bit difficult to gather the supply for projects that have been created a long time ago and that is the case for this one too. I was fortunate enough for someone to send me the Crystal Rays thread as it is not produced anymore.
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I do not have the cabochon required for this project. No indication as to the size either could be found on the chart, so will have to stitch enough of it to get some idea of the dimension needed. It seems that a color like Ruby might look very nice with probably a gold rimset, if I can put my hands on both.

This is the photo that is on the cover of the pamphlet. Just so pretty :-)

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Need to go now to stitch just one more row (big grin).

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Pierrette =^..^=

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 =^..^=

Shalimar: Second corner completed

Slowly moving along with this project. So far, the 4 middle sections and 2 corners done, remains 2 more corners and the lovely middle section, which I keep for last to motivate me to keep going whenever I ran out of steam :-)
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Pat is now working on Gail Hendrix' blue jay on her blog and perhaps after that she will start working on the cardinal, which is the one I have. -
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Yesterday, I was having a slow day, feeling a bit tired, and went to sit comfortably on my lazy chair with a book called French Knot Pictures by Christine Harris. I have always loved doing French Knots and Christine has some lovely miniature scenes in her book. Most of them are about 2" by 3" in size or 5 cm by 7 cm and I was thinking of stitching one, working on that particular project only during the evenings. She says it takes approximately 15 hours to complete a project of that size, so not that bad compared to some of the big projects I am currently working on.
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There was some discussion about some fun painted canvas made by Maggie & Company on the Needlepoint group. I was tempted by some of them myself but not sure that I want to tackle another big project right this minute.
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Going back for more stitching now :-)
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Pierrette =^..^=

Old Country: What a wonderful exciting stitching trip I just had :-)

I am doing a Happy Dance as I am typing this as I have just finished stitching Old Country and what a wonderful stitching adventure it was with all those fun stitches that I rarely ever have the opportunity to use.
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I made a few close-ups for some of the fun stitches that Jim included in this project. This one here is called a Walneto motif. Isn't it just beautiful. If you have Jean Hilton's book called "Stimulating Stitches", you will find some good explanations with little charts, which may help you along if you are having problems grasping how it is done.


This one below includes some large crescent motifs and inside you find big and small Jessicas, which we all know by now that Jim is very found of them and no wonder as they do make a statement. At first I was not all that crazy about them, but since I had to do some in all 10 ornaments completed so far, Jessicas and I have become quite good friends now :-)



I now need to clean up a bit after myself as there are threads all over the place and decide what I will tackle next. Will it be Windows into my Heart or More Options in Hardanger or Terra Rosa or Shalimar or doing the finishing for Tara or the brazilian rose or .................... (big grin)
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You will all find out on my next post, including myself (ROFL).
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Pierrette =^..^=

Old Country: Slow progress

I have managed to do a little more on Old Country while doing a million other things. Well maybe not, a million thing, but you get the idea (big grin). I am still having fun with it as it is such an interesting design with so many fun stitches that I normally don't use.

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The other day I came across a very interesting website called Vetty Creations . I guess that by now everybody knows that I like to do a little bit of this and a little bit of that, so I was very happy when I came across that site.

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While spending time on Yvette Stanton's site I discovered many wonderful projects as well as books about Ukrainian drawn thread embroidery, Mountmellick embroidery and Hardanger. After reading a bit about her books, I decided to go hunting for them here in the USA and found them at Stitching Bits and Bobs. There are only two out of the three books listed on their website but they did have the Hardanger one also. I was happily surprised by their fast service.

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What attracted me to these books is the fact that there are lots and lots of photos showing step-by-step instructions to help me along as I try those new techniques. I have done some hardanger embroidery, but have not yet done anything using the other two techniques, so these books will become very handy.

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Yvette also has a blog called White Threads and a few Yahoo groups to help those interested to learn more.

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Going back to my stitching now as I still have a bit more to do before I can call this one finished :-)

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Pierrette =^..^=

Old Country: Center

A little more done on Old Country. On this ornament we are starting from the center moving outwards.

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When I saw this ornament in my mail box a few days ago, I knew that I would have a ball with this one. The design and colors are exactly what I like. I remember having about the same feelings when I received Mojave.

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Going back to my stitching to do a little bit more and see how much I can accomplish today :-)

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Pierrette =^..^=