Gold & White ornament

Today we are having a stitch-in in the Shining Needle Society Yahoo group and I decided to work on a little gold and white ornament that Gay Ann Rogers has created especially to celebrate her new website. It is stitched on perforated paper, something that I had never tried before and was curious to see how well it worked.

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I must say that I had no difficulties at all working with the perforated paper and it seems to work well for small ornaments. This being said, I still prefer to work on canvas, but I can see that perforated paper could be useful at times like for greeting cards and things like that. I had no problem using metallic threads or silk pearl. The feeling was pretty much like when using regular canvas. Since it was small, I could hold in my hands, something I rarely do, which was nice.

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I still have to do the finishing. Gay Ann has included the instructions so will have a read after taking a little break and will try to finish it today, if not today, tomorrow at the latest.

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Pierrette =^..^=

Patches of Snow completed

Well, no more beading for this girl for a while :-)

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My mini Xmas stocking is all done and I am happy as could be. I did not dare count the number of beads in this project, but there are lots and lots of them, I can all tell you that. It will certainly draw all eyes when I put it on my Xmas tree with all this gold and off white.

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Now, I will be very good and start working on my latest cyberclass The Sky's the Limit and practice my various stitch samples (3 every two weeks), which can be easily done without taking major chunks of time away from my other projects.

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After that is done, not exactly sure what I will be working on. Will it be an already started project or a new one, big or small? I will have a look around and then decide what I feel like doing, so many choices, so little time, isn't that always the problem?

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Pierrette =^..^=

Patches of Snow: 10 out of 13 patches done

Moving along with my beading, at times with cross-eyes after adding one bead after another and another and another ............. I do love the design and will be very happy to have it as a Christmas ornament, but really not enjoying all this beading. I don't mind at all adding a few beads here and there on a project as it makes it more interesting, but this is a little more than I bargained for when I bidded on Ebay for it, but I am going to see it through, no matter what (big smile).

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The next Christmas project won't have any beading at all, if I can help it as I will need some time to recuperate from all this.

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It is an interesting design though and at some level do not regret having purchased it and will leave it at that :-)

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That is what I like about trying different things, best way to find out the techniques that you enjoy the most and do less of the ones that you don't enjoy as much. I am not saying that I will never do anything like that as I may see some design that I just have to have and will probably go for it.

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Next photo will be with the last 3 patches done and then will move on to another project.

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Today I will also be starting the cyberclass called "The Sky's the Limit" with Beth Robertson and Suzanne Howren, but will probably not be posting any photos unless I get permission as those are samples stitches and I don't want to give away their secrets. I am looking forward to getting started on these. Those classes are based on the numberous books that they have written about "Stitches for Effects". This series should come quite handy the next time I have a sky to stitch.

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Well, better go back to my stitching as I have a lot more stitching to do before the day is over.

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Pierrette =^..^=

Desire: A Susan Portra design

I don't know if you all remember, but I had a little problem with this project as I could not find the cabochons with rimsets that I needed to finish the project. Pat had sent me a few things that I thought could work (thank you Pat for those, I will keep them for later use), but after trying them, I realized that I would much rather do something else to replace the missing cabochons.
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Once I put behind me the notion that I absolutely needed some cabochons for this project, I started concentrating on what else I could do instead and decided to do some Jessicas with some golden metallic thread and then filled the inside with some red metallic threads.
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After I did that, I decided that I really did not want to put any bugle beads now, so used some gold metallic threads and made a bargello row instead.
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I am happy with the outcome. It is different from the one Susan did, but still looks good.
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All that remains now is to do the finishing. That will have to wait a little bit as I have other things to stitch first.
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For the sake of comparison, I have added below a photo of what the original looks like.


I would like to finish stitching the little Christmas stocking, but not so crazy about the idea of working with all those beads though :-(
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Pierrette =^..^=

Shalimar: 8 out of 9 sections completed

I think that this is an awful photograph, but unfortunately it will have to do until I complete the middle section and then scan properly instead of using my digital camera. At least it gives some idea of what has been done up to now.

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It is funny because my husband is supervising this one very closely as he thinks this will become his own little pillow (lol).

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Pierrette =^..^=

Patches of Snow: Middle section completed

Done a little more beading on Patches of Snow. I like beading, but I wish there would be a little more stitching and a little less beading on this one, a bit like the little Emerald one I made some time ago.

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On another note, I have found a new series of adventure books recently, quite by chance as I was investigating something else. They are called the Amelia Peabody Mystery series written by Elizabeth Peters. The first one of the series and the only one I have read so far is called Crocodile on the Sandbank and it did not take too long before I found myself hooked by that new series.

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I was lucky enough to be able to visit Egypt a few times in the past and I have always been fascinated with archeology, so this newly discovered adventure/mystery series is absolutely perfect for me. I thought I would share in the event that some of you might like to investigate this series a bit further.

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Whenever I need to relax a bit, there is nothing better for me than a good book to do the trick. I read a bit and then I can go back to my stitching a bit refreshed.

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Pierrette =^..^=

She Stoops to Conquer: All stitched

Just put the last stitch on "She Stoops to Conquer", an Anne Stradal design. I had started this little project many months ago, then got distracted by something else and just came back to it. Originally I was thinking of putting it on one of my bathroom wall, but changed my mind and will instead finish it as a flat-fold finish and keep in my stitching room so that I can keep a vigilant eye on her.
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My friends were kidding me when they saw the towel I made for her, quite thick and fluffy :-)
There is one positive thing about that towel in addition of drying her perfectly, it is the fact that when she drops it, she will probably loose an instant 5 lbs, which should be a big booster in her fight to loose a few extra pounds (grinning).
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I really like Judy Odell's little finishing instruction booklet called The Flat-Fold as it makes a really neat finish and is not expensive either to do. The instructions are well made with good photos and is easy enough for anyone to use. I have used it once before when I finished my little Halloween Friendly Ghost All you need is some decorative fabric, batting, cardboard or mat board and threads. It has been a long time since I made the first one so will have to reread it before starting, but I remember it going very well.
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This is a photo of little cabochons with rim sets that I have been looking for to use on a Susan Portra ornament. These two came with another project so can't use them for Susan's ornament. They are the perfect size, about 10mm or a little less than 1/2 inch (approximately 7/16"). I am looking for 5 red cabochons with golden rim sets. If someone knows where to find some online, please contact me at LovetoStitch99@comcast.net I think that I will buy a whole truck load of them, if I ever find some (grinning).

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Terry and Pat have been helping me to look for some, but we have not been able to find some exactly the same style as the ones on the photos. There are probably other stitchers that would also love to know where to find some and if I find the same exact thing, I will post the information on my blog.

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Pierrette =^..^=

Mystery in a Corner: Second series of photos

I have been hard at work those past few days stitching and taking photos of each section.
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Lots of little decisions along the way about selecting colors. It will be so much fun to be able to go back to these photos after the project has been completed and play the "what if" game. What if at this step or that step of the project, I had chosen this color or that color instead of this or that one, then it would have affected all the following choices and I would have ended up with a very different outcome. Would I have liked it more, less or the same?
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In order to refresh our memories, I am including the link to the first series of photos and then we can continue with these.
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On this photo I have just added a second row in my border.

Then, I proceeded to make the border that is separating all these sections making 9 sections, a bit like playing Tic Tac Toc.

Followed by another dividing band using green, again. We are now starting to have lots of green.

Adding a row of blue on four sides, which puts a little more emphasis on the blue and a little less on the green ....

Adding some additional blue on four sides again .....

And still a little more blue with a touch of topaz inside the partial Scotch stitch pattern ....

Oups, adding a little more green, making us notice the green more, again ....

On this photo, I have added a little bit of orange color that is part of my Watercolour thread in order to tie things up a bit with the center section ....

A little more blue after that ....

And I find myself again adding some green ...

This is it for now until I receive the second part of this project, the part that is a "mystery" to all of us, except Gay Ann or we would all be in big trouble (grinning).
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When I look at this last photo, I can see that all divisions are in green, important elements of the design are in blue and also a bit of yellow-orange has been added to give it a bit of zing.

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I am really happy with all the colors that I have been using. I think that this particular shade of blue and green are my very favorite and I have always loved yellow and orange in moderation, making this project an especially fun learning experience for me.

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Will continue with this project as soon as I get the second part, so don't go away (smiling).

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Pierrette =^..^=

Mystery in a Corner: A Gay Ann Rogers design

Gay Ann Rogers in her Shining Needle Society Classroom is now helping us learn more about colors with a new project called Mystery in a Corner.
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I have resisted this new project for a while as I already have so many different projects in progress these days and many many more waiting in the wings, but after giving it a lot of thought, I decided to go ahead and participate in this one as it has been designed to help us with color decisions, something that will be quite useful to me.
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I communicated with Gay Ann, purchased the project instructions and chose my Watercolour from which the other colors needed for the project would come from. Having done that, I communicated with Pam, who had already done multiple colour combinations, and told her that I wanted something done with Woodlands, which she happily did and the first photo shows the threads that she selected for me (greens, blues & topaz to go with Woodlands).

When I received my canvas and my threads a few days ago, I started with the stitching.

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I decided that I was going to take photos for each step in order to document it and thus be able to use this experiment as a reminder of the impact that each successive colours will make on the previous one(s) and so on.

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On this photo we can see, starting from the very center, a blue metallic thread, followed by a topaz metallic, followed by my Woodlands watercolour and then again the blue metallic thread. Looking at this photo I am happy with how it looks. I like the blue colour best, so I am manipulating the threads so that it comes out with blue as emphasis.

Here I have just added another row of topaz. By doing that, it has just changed a bit the impact that my blue had made in the precedent photo.

On this one, I have added again some Watercolour threads, putting the emphasis on the yellow/orange color.

This photo shows the first border using some green DMC Perle #5 with Watercolours for the couching, with some additional metallic threads. I chose the section of the Watercolours that I liked the best for this couching.

In this last photo, for now, I have really put the emphasis on the blue, by stitching the middle section in blue and also for each corner, using Impressions and metallic threads. I am happy with how things look so far. Still plenty more decisions to make along the way.

I will now be adding a second border next to this first one and will continue with the pattern.

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Pierrette =^..^=

She Stoops to Conquer: An Anne Stradal design

This is another project that I have been working on and a fun one at that. It is called "She Stoops to Conquer" designed by Anne Stradal from ABS Designs.
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This is a little painted canvas size 4 inches by 6 inches (stitched area). So far, I have stitched the upper wallpaper, the upper part of our little lady (grinning) and the interior border. Oh yes, almost forgot the "She Stoops to Conquer" all stitched in black.
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I have a couple of ideas about how I want to stitch the towel that is covering her, but will need to try a few things and see how it looks.
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I think that I will do her hair curly just like Anne did on hers, as I love to do French knots.
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I am picking the colors as I go along. I rarely decide the exact colors before I start working on something like this, as most often than not, I have to change them anyway as they don't work like I had hoped they would.
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I now need to start working on Mystery in a Corner.
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Pierrette =^..^=